When I sat down for dinner with a friend on Wednesday, I felt defeated. Not just for having had a rough last week of classes, but because, after having already rescheduled on her, I was going to have to cut our meal short to deal with yet another crisis at the Daily Trojan.

But this week has been all about gratitude  — or at least I’m trying to keep it about that. As I’m stepping away from my role at the DT, I’ve been countlessly reminded to savor every “last moment,” even the last time I had to cancel plans with friends to handle the responsibilities of this paper. 

I did the math recently. I’ve spent nearly a tenth of my time at USC in the DT newsroom, over 1,600 hours, or about two total months. I’ve accumulated over 100 bylines; I’ve even slept there. 

As editor-in-chief, one of my new responsibilities has been to collect evidence of our “impact” for students. That’s things like photos, data and meeting attendance, all of which we submit to the University as part of being housed within the Student Publications department.

Yet all those numbers don’t count the ways that time in the newsroom has changed my life. It will never capture the lifelong friends I’ve made at the DT, the way our stories have held the University accountable, or everything I’ve learned about how much I can do as a person, writer and leader.

I’m in the unusual position of being an outgoing editor-in-chief who isn’t graduating, who isn’t even a senior. In a very real sense, this isn’t goodbye. I feel absurdly self-conscious taking the end of my tenure so seriously, but it is the closing of a door, it is a change; I’ve never been good at change — I wrote my incoming letter from the editor, “Change is the only constant,” with more nostalgia and apprehension than was probably advisable.

In the grand scheme of things, I hope there are many more changes — dramatic and subtle — in my life and at DT. To me, the sign of having lived a good life is when you can get to an ending and feel no regrets, even if you’re not ready to go.

But this semester in particular has been a reminder to feel that gratitude not just at the end, but in all the little moments in between. 

Every semester I’ve been here has gone faster than the last. I remember the first night I spent in the newsroom like it was yesterday — someone had brought their cats into the office — but the past four months have been a blur. One day, Fall 2025 Editor-in-Chief Nathan Elias was handing me the keys to the EIC office, and somehow I’m now here, writing a goodbye that isn’t a goodbye. Somewhere in that span of time were small victories, hard days and a lot of laughter.

I would not be where I am today without the editors who taught me what they knew, who poured their time into this place, who stayed late into the night before and alongside me. Thank you to Eva, Jen, Sasha, Halo, Christina, Bianca, Kim, Stef, Nathan and many others.

It’s their words and training that made me who I am today, but it’s the work of the many people who give their words, their stories, their art and their time to the DT that drive us forward: To the staff and editors who create this paper, thank you; to the people who have told us their stories, thank you; to the people who read our stories, thank you.

At the moment, I’m struggling to imagine what my life will look like in the fall. What will I do in the late hours of the night? Study? Do Homework? See my friends with no cancellations? Even if I’m back at the Daily Trojan, writing or copy editing or otherwise — and I hope I will be — this semester has been a gift. 

As I step back, I’m trying to take the small moments as a gift. Next semester will surely be different without so much time at the DT, but I can only hope it will bring as many small moments of joy, community and consequence.

“Editors’ Epilogue” is a rotating column featuring a different Daily Trojan editor in each installment writing about their personal experiences. Nicholas Corral is a junior majoring in journalism and the Spring 2026 editor-in-chief at the Daily Trojan.