My grandmother cried when I took her to the Collegian office.

She and my grandfather visited Hillsdale for the first time last fall. I showed them around campus. At the end of our tour, I took them to the Collegian office.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours in that room in the back of the Union. I started writing as a freshman in 2020 and have worked in various editorial roles since. In the office, I’ve written and rewritten dozens of articles, interviewed sources, designed dozens of newspaper pages, and combed through pieces word by word to fact check, edit, and reorganize them. 

That means the room doesn’t always feel very special to me. Sometimes it feels like going there is a chore.

But when my grandmother stepped foot into the office, her eyes filled with tears. She became speechless looking around at the computers, posters of famous writers, and stacks of newspapers. My eyes glazed over the features of the room I’d seen a thousand times but she saw them and recognized them as parts of a place that had given me opportunities and introduced me to lifelong friends. She saw the collage of the staff’’s photos, my signature on the whiteboard, and the photos of scholarship recipients going back years. 

Her reaction reminded me that what I’ve had the opportunity to do with The Collegian the past three and a half years is special. Even more than that, she reminded me not to take the little things for granted. It’s cliché to talk about how difficult Hillsdale is, but that’s because it’s true. It asks a lot from its students. But it gives so much, too.

Don’t let the long days, the challenging assignments, or the demanding extracurriculars distract you from the wonderful opportunities available to you as a student at Hillsdale. For me, it’s been The Collegian, but for you it might be a practice room in the music building, a locker room in the sports complex, or the classics seminar room in Kendall Hall. 

This college will make you a better human being if you just let it. So let it.