I wrote this mainly so my last piece ever wouldn’t be a one-off soccer article that I’m only semi-proud of.
Just kidding, sort of.
I always imagined myself writing this during the final days of my time at UC Irvine, likely with tears welled up in my eyes and shaky hands. Though my eyes are a bit wet and my hands are trembling a bit, at the time of publishing I’ll have approximately 25 weeks left as a student at this university that I have so much pride in being a part of.
As of this article’s publication, my time with New University will be over after three years and countless memories, heartbreaks, professional growth, setbacks, lessons and everything in between.
It is hard to put into words, especially within our infamous 1200 word count limit, what this newspaper means to me. I won’t bore anyone who happens to stumble upon this with the longform history of my experience with New U, but people that know me know that I’m always happy to talk about it.
From opinion intern to managing editor and everything else I had an opportunity to do, I found out what it meant to be a journalist with New U. I entered the paper wide-eyed as a freshman in my first quarter at UCI, and actually got rejected from my original section of choice: Sports. After Opinion and its lovely editors at the time took a chance on me, I knew that this work was what I had to do for the rest of my life.
After everything that happened with New U’s sister publication and the near-shutdown of the newspaper entirely, I grew even more affectionate for its operations and staff. I was technically a leader at this time as an opinion editor, but I feel that I grew into myself more in that role as a result of the conflict. I don’t want to spend more time than necessary on what happened back in the spring of 2024, but those events shaped my career as a journalist more than anything I can think about at this moment.
After the dust settled on that very turbulent portion of my career with New U, I was fortunate enough to be voted in as one of two managing editors for 2024-25. The year in that position was a tough one for both me personally and professionally — I feel I struggled far more than I anticipated that I would, and that took a large toll on me mentally.
Eventually, as I did the year before when the paper nearly ceased operations, I grew more into my role. I don’t think I was the best managing editor to ever come through New U, but I think I tried hard to make a positive impact on the paper and succeeded in many ways. Most importantly, the editorial team that I worked with and I were able to expand our general team from approximately 25 members in 2023-24 to over 100 by the time I left my role at the end of 2024-25.
That is all I could ask for. Student journalism is everything to me, and giving my counterparts opportunities to grow in the same environment that nurtured me means the world.
After 45 articles published, not including this sappy little workup, my time with the paper I’ve called home for three years is over.
Accepting a job with an organization that creates a conflict of interest with my main reporting beat at New U is less than ideal from the perspective of someone who wanted to be with the newspaper for four years, but it is a dream come true otherwise. After my first live cover of a men’s basketball game in 2024, I quickly realized that sports reporting was going to be the path I would have to pursue over anything else professionally.
To know what your passions are is a blessing, and to learn them while you’re young and in college is something that makes the word blessing sound like an understatement. I have New U to thank for this part of my professional self-discovery.
Though my path now has strayed away from New U, I will always root for its journalists, editors, artists, managers, photographers and operations at-large. Student journalism is sacred, and I hope for the rest of my life I’m able to work in this field and help students trying to grow their own careers.
As for the thank yous, the first people I have to shout out are my first-ever editors, Daniel Waters and Erika Cao. You both took chances on me when there was a real possibility for me not joining the paper at all, and I’ve loved keeping in touch and seeing where your lives have gone since New U.
Of course, thank you to the leaders who came before me and helped me find my niche in the paper: James Huston, Moh Samhouri, Laiyla Santillan and Jaheem Conley. Without these people the paper would quite literally not exist as we know it — they were pivotal in restarting operations after 2024 and most of them don’t get the flowers they deserve for it.
I also want to thank the professional staff that aided in all of New U’s operations while I was on board: Stephanie Van Ginkel, Daniel Stone, Robert Schumm, Khajika Soyoltulga and everybody else on the Student Government Student Media/Student Center Event Services team.
Lastly, the friends and connections that I made at this paper made everything worth it. There’s too many to count and list on here, but the ones that certainly come to mind are Jaden Hunter, June Min, Benji Flores, Jack Fedor, Trista Lara, Zahira Vasquez, Sofia Feeney and Sarah Millington. You all made doing the work easier and motivated me to keep trying to get better every day more than you know.
My first-ever article was opinion, and though I found what I wanted to do long term in another field, I told myself sometime in the last year that I wanted my last-ever piece to be in the section that got me started.
I’m happy that I got my wish.
Thanks for everything New U. See you on Ring Road for distribution soon.
Jacob Ramos is a fourth-year criminology, law and society student. He can be reached at jacobtr@uci.edu.
Edited by Annabelle Aguirre