Let me tell you why I love this job

Well, this is it.

My final column as editor-in-chief.

The last entry into this open-access view into my brain as an editor for a campus newspaper, and the last address I give to readers.

In Thursday's issue you'll hear from the new Editor-in-Chief Carlos Pineda, but for now, it's my turn to give my last words.

Instead of going on a standard sappy sentimental column about how things have changed so much, how important it is to read about UCF news and all the other clichéd journalism babbles, I think I am going to simply tell you why it is I liked my job so much.

Here are the things I liked most about my job.

I loved the terror that would slowly grow in my heart every single Sunday and Wednesday morning. It was the editor side of my brain, the part that was paid money to find every possible thing that could go wrong during the day and, as quickly and efficiently as possible, find a solution to fix that problem.

I loved the beginning of the semesters, when it was my duty to hunt down the most talented and motivated people within the UCF journalism department I could find, and get them on board with me. During times when I felt exhausted and contemplated just phoning it in, the fire I saw in the eyes of all of my staff members when something big was going on, when they would have the spark of a good idea or getting the top story written just right was enough to keep me going.

Not to mention the look that comes across everyone's face when work for the day is finally done. It's a look of victory.

I loved walking around campus and seeing people reading the newspaper, knowing that the product in their hands was something that I and my staff had spent 10 or more hours on — not counting all the out-of-the-office time.

I loved — on the few rare occasions this actually happened — when I happened to know something that the copy editors didn't. I know this might sound conceited and mean, but trust me, it's not. All of the copy editors I had this semester were amazingly talented. I reckon that knowing something about grammar or style usage that they didn't only happened once or twice, so I had to relish my victories when they happened.

I loved the hush that would fall on a Student Government Association meeting when I would walk in the room because people knew who I was, knew what I represented and the power that it held. It takes some time getting used to it, but after a while you understand that a room full of 52 senators who all know your name is not a bad thing.

I loved getting stopped by people who would ask me if I was "That guy from the newspaper." As my friend and former sports editor, Padrick Brewer, can attest, it happened for the first time with a bartender at Applebees. From there, it was people in my classes and a guy at a Less Than Jake concert.

There was even one person — one person in a full nine months — who said one of my columns was funny. I don't know your name, but I'll always remember you.

I loved seeing the shocked looks on the faces of people who doubted the paper and everything we do when we won our five first-place victories at the Society of Professional Journalists Southeastern Conference. Not only for best non-daily college paper — an award the Future has been seeking a long time — but for our website, something I helped build.

Most of all, I just loved knowing I was contributing to something.

Maybe this is a selfish reason.

Maybe it shows I am in this for the wrong reasons.

But, when it comes down to it, the thing I love most is that I know that my name is now a part of a tradition going back to 1968. I was a part of something bigger than myself. My name gets to go down in the history books as one of the few who could call themselves editor of the campus paper at UCF.

In a few weeks I graduate.

I'll move on to other places in the country, but where, I don't really know yet. I'll get another degree, although I'm not sure how far I will go with graduate school.
I'll find a job doing something that I don't know yet, and I'll figure out how to be a journalist in this ever changing world of media.

Months, years, decades from now I will be able to look back and be dead certain of one thing: I was a part of the award-winning Central Florida Future.

There were editors who forged the path before me, and there will be those who do the same long after I am gone.

But for me, for the past 10 months, this was my time. It was my path.

That's what I'll love most.