By Kristen Allen
Chief Copy Editor
On my first Wednesday night working in Roberts basement three and a half years ago, I somehow thought that The Bucknellian hadn’t yet made the transition to modernity. I brought different colored pens with me, thinking we would be editing printed versions of the articles with traditional editors’ markings. How naïve I was! Since then, I’ve seen The Bucknellian transition from working entirely on the server to working mostly online, the creation of a website for the newspaper, the proper format of that word change from “Web site” to “website” and, most recently, even the creation of a Bucknellian app. But my favorite feeling is still picking up a fresh copy of the latest issue from Robert L. Rooke Science Center on Friday mornings, knowing that I had something to do with its creation.
The Bucknellian has come a long way in the past four years, and so have I. As a first-year, I was shy, timid and not at all confident in my intellectual abilities. Using my newfound knowledge of AP style to edit my peers’ articles gave me confidence because I could use a skill set that very few people on campus had. Even though most of the technical things I’ve learned—strange state abbreviations, the “official” names for every building on campus and which way the apostrophes before class years are supposed to face—are things no one else would ever notice, knowing them made me feel skilled and therefore confident in my ability to edit, which eventually translated to confidence in other areas.
Now, as a soon-to-graduate senior, I have been chief copy editor for two years. My name has been on the masthead for 48 issues, and I’ve hired and trained many capable successors to my position. I’ve met some awesome people that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and had the opportunity to create something I was proud of each week. How many students can say that?
As a biology and psychology double major, I appreciate the chance The Bucknellian has given me to release my inner perfectionist when it comes to the written word. My favorite part of any English class has always been peer editing, and getting paid to do it on a weekly basis has practically been a dream come true. It’s incredibly hard to believe that this is the last issue of The Bucknellian I’ll ever work on, and probably the last time I’ll ever work for a newspaper, since I’m going into healthcare. Even though they made Thursdays difficult, I’ll always remember late Wednesday nights in Roberts fondly, because it was one of the few places on campus where I felt I was truly in my element.