Coming into high school, I immediately knew I wanted to be involved in journalism at the school. I remember seeing Intro to Journalism on my 8th-grade forecasting sheet, thinking that was the only journalism class McDaniel offered. So, as I went through Intro to Journalism, enjoying every bit of it, then eventually the end of the year came, and I was thinking I had finished the journalism pathway at McDaniel. Then Sb started talking about how we have a newspaper, and at first I wasn’t the most into it, but as I realized some of the other people from my class were joining the newspaper, I figured I should take the opportunity. Little did I know that was probably one of the best decisions I have made throughout high school. 

My sophomore year in the newspaper, I remember feeling very nervous for some of my first newspaper classes. As I started to settle in and make new friends like Aria, Emma, and Eban, who are still some of my closest friends today. Through making new friends and finding my sense of belonging, I realized how much I enjoyed this class and knew I wanted to go further in the program. In my junior year, I definitely wanted to become more of a leader within the class, becoming the sports section editor and joining the editorial leadership team. 

Junior year is where I felt like the class really started to come together as one big community. It was a great time getting to know everyone in that class, whether it was joking around with Jackson and Oliver or having the weirdest conversations with Max and Val, I always felt a sense of community and unwavering togetherness in the newspaper, no matter who I was talking to.

 Then, finally, this year, we had a mostly new class with people who had little to no experience with journalism or the processes we have at The Oracle. I knew it’d be a bit of an uphill battle, but the class picked up very fast, and it almost felt like nothing ever changed. A goal I had set at the beginning of this year was to make sure everyone felt included and felt like they could ask me for help or talk to me, because I knew that was one thing that would have made it easier for my first year in the newspaper. Overall, my experience with Oracle has been unforgettable, and a lot of the memories I made will stick with me for the rest of my life. I can’t thank Sb and my classmates enough for this experience.