This is my last week here at The Daily Eastern News, and it is certainly a bittersweet feeling. I have had the best time working here the past couple of years, and I am certainly going to miss this place.

I started off doing occasional news and photography at the DEN, but in August 2017 I was promoted to photo editor. After working as photo editor for the 2017-2018 school year, I was then again promoted to editor-in-chief for the summer semester. After the summer, I returned to my previous position as photo editor.

In all honesty, I am a journalism and photojournalism minor. I chose these minors because I always had an interest in photography and news coverage, but I never thought I would do too much with these minors. However, I walked into the newsroom one day, and I never left. I loved the work I did for the paper, and I decided to dedicate a lot of time and effort here to put out great content every day. I now have a passion for the field of journalism due to my work here, and I am currently applying for journalism and photography positions in Tennessee, (where I plan to move after graduation), and I sure hope I get to work in these types of jobs for the rest of my life.

While working here, I grew significantly as a person, journalist, writer, editor and photographer. I have worked in every aspect of the newsroom in some way or another, and I would have never been able to do it without help from my friends, colleagues and advisers here at the DEN. I have made many great friends here, and I am sure we will stay in touch after graduation. It feels amazing to work with so many talented and dedicated people; we all did an excellent job maintaining the long legacy of The Daily Eastern News at Eastern. I will never forget this place, and I will truly miss working here.

I want to say thank you to everyone in the journalism faculty that taught me the skills necessary to work in the field, and for giving me the guidance I needed to succeed here. I also want to thank the advisers for the DEN, Lola Burnham and Brian Poulter. Poulter, your Intro to Visual Communication class introduced me to photojournalism, and I was instantly hooked. Photojournalism is now my one true passion, and I would not be where I am today without you offering guidance and advice whenever I needed it. I also promise to always capture emotion and keep my backgrounds clean in my photographs.

Burnham, you have given me the guidance and advice I needed for all the other work I have previously done here, like opinion writing, editing and news coverage. Thank you, Burnham, for putting your reputation on the line and approving me as the editor-in-chief for the summer of 2018. I have a tendency to underestimate myself in some situations, so I thought I would not be qualified enough, but you believed in me and gave me your approval for the job, and it means the world to me.

Thank you and goodbye to all my friends and colleagues that are currently working or have previously worked here. I was going to list off all of you here, but I realized the list would be way too long, and our readers probably would not appreciate a long list of names. So, goodbye everyone; you all made working here that much more enjoyable and inspiring.

I recommend the DEN and all the student publications at Eastern for anyone enrolled here. Even if your field of study has nothing to do with journalism, you will develop important skills here, and you do get paid for your work. Also, if you are in that small group of journalism majors who do not work in any student publications, start working here immediately. No job will hire you without experience in the field. I am not a journalism major and I loved it here, so I am sure you will too.

Jordan Boyer is a senior history major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at jcboyer@eiu.edu.