Category: 2026 Senior Columns

For the past four years, I have experienced Cal Poly through a camera lens. Since joining Mustang News freshman year, I’ve spent countless hours carrying camera gear, setting up interviews, editing late into the night and developing a mountain of video journalism skills. And somehow, after all this time, asking strangers for interviews is still […]

If someone had told high school me that I would willingly do the scuba on live television, I would have laughed in their face. I don’t dance, and I would never choose to be on camera. I hated the idea of being perceived. Every Instagram post felt like something I needed to analyze, and I […]

I didn’t step inside the newsroom my first three years of college.  I can’t say exactly that I didn’t feel welcome. Logically, I knew no one was actually going to tell me to leave; and if there was a stare, it would probably be out of curiosity and not judgement.  But any non-affiliated journalism major […]

Most of Mustang News’ staff are journalism majors. They spend every day for years learning how to source, write and edit to produce quality content. It shows up in the great work we do. Not only am I not a journalism major, but I have never even taken a journalism class. I applied to be […]

During my freshman year at Cal Poly, the routine was simple: wake up early, boil water for my Twinings English Breakfast tea in my kettle without waking up my roommate and head to class.  But if it was the first Tuesday of every month, the routine was different. My tea stayed the same, the roommate […]

When I walked into the Mustang News newsroom for the first time as a reporter in my freshman year, it felt like the start of a new journey. I knew I wanted to be a journalist since seeing fictional journalists like Lois Lane on my TV screen and realizing it sounded like the perfect career […]

I keep waiting to cry before I start writing this. As if tear-stained paper is what I need to prove the depth of my commitment and connection to this organization. All that would do is tear the page when my pen inevitably crosses the soppy minefield I would have left behind. I do not need […]

Two years ago, I pulled off the biggest surprise of my life. My best friend Brennan had already been at Cal Poly for two years, so I secretly applied to transfer. I waited months without telling her, not wanting to get her hopes up. It was a reach school, since my mental health had taken […]

Cal Poly is like a really formative relationship. This campus and town have given me both my brightest and darkest days. After years of thick and thin, I am ready to break up with this place.  I got to Cal Poly days after I turned 19 in September 2022 and, boy, was I stupid with […]

My time in Mustang News narrows down to one lesson: there is no such thing as the perfect time to do anything. If you don’t open yourself up to new opportunities, you will continue passing up every good thing that comes your way, waiting for the perfect time to pounce at a fresh opportunity you […]