When I arrived at Clark University four years ago in 2020 I had no experience with newspapers and honestly felt as though I was not a good writer. Four years later I am proud to say that working for The Scarlet has been one of my most rewarding college experiences, having taught me so much about journalism, writing, and working as a team.

My friend and current Editor-in-Chief of The Scarlet, Everett Beals, introduced me to the paper during the fall of our first year at Clark; I saw The Scarlet as an opportunity to creatively write about a longtime passion of mine – sports. My first ever article covered the upcoming college basketball season and some rough analysis of mine as an outlook for the year. Though I still had much to learn, the excitement of seeing my first article be published online filled me with a drive to keep writing more.

Of all the articles I have written during my time as a writer and as the sports editor, my piece covering basketball captain and fellow senior Mikey O’Brien is by far my proudest work. I thoroughly enjoyed conversing with O’Brien and then crafting a story out of our interview; as a whole my article on O’Brien came together just how I wanted it to and I was overjoyed to shed some light on a superlative member of our community – it felt like the culmination of my time in The Scarlet.

Beyond writing for The Scarlet, I feel grateful that I had the opportunity to learn about journalism and how news can be used as a force for good. I am especially proud of the work done by our team this year. I think we came together and did some good for our community and that feels immensely rewarding. I know that no matter where I go in the future, I will carry forward the importance of journalism to a community thanks to the great writers I have been able to work with at The Scarlet.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I am grateful for the wonderful editors, staff members and meeting-goers I have met and become friends with through The Scarlet. Meetings have always been a source of enjoyment, laughter and camaraderie over the past year; the members of our tight-knit community always find a way to spark interesting conversations or produce funny moments. The Scarlet would be nothing without the writers and editors, and I could not be happier with who we have in our great community.

– William Schechter ’24
Sports Editor emeritus, soon