By: Jason Lin
To everyone reading this, thank you for being along and witnessing the biggest journey this newspaper has offered.
It wasn’t anything I had ever expected. Truly. Stepping onto the campus of Brooklyn College (BC) as a wide-eyed freshman, I was only just learning what it meant to be a college student. Juggling assignments, classes, and the strange new world around me – and wondering, perhaps, where I belonged. Writing has always been a cornerstone of passion that I carried within me, like a silent flame that burned brightly. But making my passion contribute to the community – that seemed almost impossible. Yet through some persuasion and a whole lot of heart, here I was in the BC Vanguard at the beginning of the 2023 spring semester.
Right from that first step into the door, something told me that this was where I would stay and belong all this time.
Throughout the course of my time here, I have had the distinct pleasure of witnessing generations of extraordinary people dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to this group. There was Gabriela Flores, the pioneer who breathed life back into the Vanguard after returning from Covid when it needed it most, who stood at the beginning of something fragile and made it real. After her departure came Serin Sarsour, who laid down the last, careful stroke of paint that completed the foundation Gabriela had rebuilt upon, making the Vanguard whole in a way that still stands today. Then there was Kate Dempsey, a fierce guardian of everything the Vanguard represented, who protected our image and our dignity during some of the roughest and most uncertain patches BC had gone through. She never flinched. She never let us fall. Following her was Paulina Gajewski, who saw beyond the page and pushed us into a new era, elevating the Vanguard into something more dynamic, more interactive, and more connected to the student body than ever before. At last, to seal it all, Rami Mansi arrived: expanding our reach, amplifying our voice, and cementing the Vanguard’s reputation and influence far beyond the walls of BC.
To each of you: you are not just leaders. You are legends.
And to each one of the E-Board members and staff writers who have shouldered the burden of leading this group over the past four years – everyone who edited, took their time to write, attended meetings, and put in effort beyond what was asked of them – thank you. Truly. The Vanguard did not run on ink and words alone; it ran on your dedication, your creativity, those countless late nights, and your love for storytelling. You are the backbone of everything we’ve built, and the Vanguard is as much yours as it is anyone’s.
Yet I won’t pretend this journey was easy either. As I spent my three years here, I became, in many ways, the longest-standing member here, which meant that I was there through all challenges, all the struggles. I was there when we navigated a brand-new stipend process that none of us had a roadmap for. I was there when we worked through an entirely new supplies system, learning as we went, sometimes stumbling, always pushing forward. I was there during the difficult, uncertain periods that tested not just the Vanguard but student journalism at large. It was not always glamorous. Some days it was hard. Some days, it felt like we were holding the whole thing together with sheer willpower and a dream.
And I would not trade a single one of those moments for anything in this world.
Through those battles, I discovered my voice and found my people. I became a person whom I didn’t even recognize when I came in as that timid freshman three years ago. The Vanguard not only gave me bylines and assignments, but also a purpose, a community, and a refresher course on why words have weight.
As I write this farewell, I am not sad; rather, I am brimming with gratitude, with pride, and with optimism. More than anything else, I would like to see the BC Vanguard flourish not merely for another year, or a couple of decades, but for as long as BC continues to thrive. May it remain a place where students discover their passion, their courage, and their community. May it be a dynasty – a legacy passed down from hand to hand, generation to generation, each one leaving their own brushstroke on something bigger than themselves.
To the next chapter of the Vanguard: Carry it forward, protect it, fight for it, and love it the way we did. Just know that somewhere out there, we graduates are rooting for every single word you write.
Jason Lin, Signing out