Finding confidence among the confusion while coding for The Bruin -30-

I wanted to be a copy editor for the Daily Bruin more than anything, long before I even knew how to write a line of code. I loved looking for the minute details, the things that didn’t always matter to most people. Given my clickbait-y headline suggestions for The Stack this year, I’m glad past Copy chiefs had the sense not to let that happen.

Instead, I had a world far away from Kerckhoff Hall 118 my first two years of college. I learned life skills like bargaining to run profitable samosa fundraisers, cutting out flyers at 3 a.m. and consuming six cups of coffee during finals week. I learned a little about school and a lot about myself, before finally declaring a statistics major on a whim. I liked numbers, words and art – I couldn’t pick, and all of them together, along with being in awe of The Stack, Daily Bruin’s data journalism and newsroom tech blog, made me apply to the newspaper organization once again.

Things changed by the time I applied my third year – my favorite universe shifted from the multiverses of “Doctor Who” to the tidyverse, and I bounced from wanting to become a health care economist to a confused soul to a data scientist. At some point, I veered away from worshiping Associated Press style and turned to The Stack, which allowed me to learn that my true love was data-driven narratives – or as we say it in code:

let love = data + narratives;

Yes, I just added both R and JavaScript to a -30- column. #digital-first, am I right?

To my first editors: Mike Zhang, Hongyi Zhang and Nathan Smith, thank you for taking a shot when you took me in. I reread my intern application while writing this column and am cringing once again – but I’m so happy to have been welcomed into this wonderful, messy world.

To Simran Vatsa, thank you for grounding me when I wanted to scream because of this organization and the college that surrounds it. This year wouldn’t have been possible without you.

To The Stack babies, it was terrifying working with people as kind and talented as you. You pushed me to be a better version of myself every day. For that, I am forever grateful. I hope to be half as cool as you someday.

To my fellow Online editors, I could not be prouder to be part of this team. We came together at the best and worst of times, and I found kinship in such a supportive and diverse group of people.

To Amy Baumgartner and Michael Zshornack, thank you for everything – you were voices of reason and sources of strength throughout all that happened this year. Upper management, I found friends in you during retreat, while gushing over shapefiles and cracking bad Dijkstra’s algorithm jokes.

This newsroom was and is a place of wonder. From finding my mom’s long-lost childhood friend through a fellow editor to having the best peers and alumni invested in my growth, I found myself happily confused every day by how lucky I was to be here.

To all my family and friends outside of The Bruin – I’ve returned to the outside world, perhaps a little paler and crankier from a yearlong adventure inside a decrepit, windowless newsroom. My two-year scarf phase crumbled. I started liking dogs too. The stories of Budget Bao and the War of the Worlds scene may die with me, but I leave this beloved newsroom with the love for small details – albeit now in comma-separated files instead of essays – and bad puns that I had as a first-year, as well as a voice that is a little louder and stronger than before.

Next up on my journey are uncharted waters far away from Kerckhoff 118 – but the collective strength and support of the Daily Bruin, my friends and my family has me optimistic for what’s to come.

Dialani was an Online contributor 2017-2018, and an Illustrations contributor and The Stack editor 2018-2019.