I’m writing this from the newsroom on the last Wednesday evening I’ll ever spend arranging an edition of The Campus on the page, and, uh, this story is way past the Monday evening deadline I should have been able to hit. In a different universe, I probably wrote a heartfelt and polished senior sendoff in which I mention how working for The Campus teaches you how to turn a story around on time, every time, and it would have already been copyedited, revised, copyedited again and laid out on the page alongside my more responsible peers’ professional headshots. But that universe isn’t this one, the one in which I’m the guy who joined staff in my junior year just because I wanted to be better friends with everyone else who knew the door code for this room.

“I would literally never do that much work for free,” is something my freshman year self definitely said about The Campus to a friend who’d started churning out news articles as soon as orientation week was over. Like most declarative statements freshmen make about the future, that was wrong.

Over time I would realize that when my friend disappeared all afternoon into the dark and mysterious newsroom depths, they were having a lot of fun. I was missing out on inside jokes, uproarious laughter, early access to the biggest news on campus and several hours of quality time each week with a group of hardworking, trustworthy people trained to always pick up a phone when it rings. After two years, I realized I would do a lot of things to have friends like that.

This year I wrote more than 13,000 words and published more than 80 photos. My list of responsibilities include layout, editing, reporting, pitching story ideas, mentoring junior editors and contributing writers, photography and graphic design. No one made me feel like I needed to do more; I just kept volunteering for what sounded like fun. I really would do that much work just for the thrill of putting together a print paper each week.

Around me, some of my best college friends are giggling. Somehow it’s 10 p.m. My backpack has been parked in this room since before noon and my homework isn’t even started. It feels pretty great.