You can be put on mute. Or, you can step out of your bubble and tune your confidence. You can use your voice. Better yet, you can use it to make an impression.

If there’s anything journalism has taught me, it’s this. If there’s anything being Editor-in-Chief has taught me, it’s that with all this, you can do whatever your little heart desires.

For three years, I’ve used the enlightened morals and intellectual values I’ve learned from The Pearl Post, my mentor and my fellow staff members to carry me through high school. For my two and a half years as Editor-in-Chief, I have held this paper’s hand, told this paper stories and introduced this paper to new people.

The Pearl Post and I have faced many battles together but we have prevailed in each and every one. When the paper was birthed in 2009 and had to figure out a way to create a name for itself, I scanned it eagerly trying to search for its identity. And when I became a part of it that following year, I realized I could contribute to its already strong, eloquent personality and I did.

In the bustling center of this publication, however, is adviser Adriana Chavira and her concise selection of writers and photographers that give the paper its scholarly yet eccentric personality.

Like the way I’ve seen loyal members of the staff drift in and out through the newsroom doors, I’ve watched this publication throw elbows to win its rightful spot on the pinnacle of high school journalism. I’ve seen it mold loyally into peoples’ lives and reform the way they allow themselves to think and express themselves.

I’ve witnessed it change silence and modesty into words and poise. The Pearl Post’s brief but growing legacy makes people want to do righteous things in its honor and live up to the work of those before them.

There is an invaluable feeling of self-worth and fulfillment The Pearl Post has etched onto my persona. Before it, I had no passion and no hobby. Honestly.  I had a desire to follow the crowd and pull through without any problems.

But then I told my first story, reported my first event, opened my eyes for the first time and realized that social conformity meant choosing dishonesty to yourself. And journalism is all about honesty, to everyone.

In my time as The Pearl Post’s Editor-in-Chief, I’ve learned that problems and conflict are a need for solutions and solutions are the building blocks to good journalism. The Pearl Post has received its fair share of criticisms and not-so-kind remarks but its staff members are its family and its family’s refusal to shy away in the face of competition has allowed it to do much in its (so far) short existence.

Awards are not everything, but a plaque on the wall and nationally recognized student journalists speak for themselves.

Everyone who dives wholly into the paper and takes their heart with them falls in love with it. And I don’t blame them. Maybe we blindly love this publication for the person it makes us want to become, but we adore it for the friends we make as a part of it, for the character we build prioritizing for it and for the path it draws for our futures, even if that path is not journalism.

Throughout my years, I have met destined mathematicians and fated chemists who do not regret a moment they spent on The Pearl Post. And although it has made me realize my lifelong passion, it has shown me more than where I’m going with my future, but who I will meet and what I will need to become in order to be the lifeblood of truth in our world.

There is no room for naivety and ignorance, and I have trained for three long years to be a soldier in the fight against those qualities that consume our vision and our lives.

Now, I’m taking the diverse, cultural-accepting, enthusiastic ethics I’ve gained as part of The Pearl Post into the real world. The moments I spent telling its readers stories are coming to an end. But now, I’m going to take my untold stories from the newsroom to apply myself to the world.

Soon, I’ll just be an alumna of this publication, but I’ll always be a student to what its family has taught me: not to be put on mute.