I think that at some point, every senior has an end-of-college crisis.
Mine came while I was filling out the activities section of my medical school application. Daily Bruin Sports: assistant editor and senior staffer. That’s it? Four years of writing wraps on wraps on previews on wraps while spending countless hours in the windowless time-warp of Kerckhoff 118 crammed onto one measly line?
Was it really worth it? It’s a question every burned-out Daily Bruin senior must have asked themselves at some point. While leaving the office at 3 a.m. last year, I may have angrily answered no. But I still came back to Kerckhoff the next day for production. And the next and the next.
An infinite character limit on the application would not have been enough to explain how much the Daily Bruin has shaped me. Of course, it all starts with the inspiring journalists I have been able to work with.
So many brilliant writers have rolled through the sports corner of the office in my four years here. I’m just honored one of my stories made it onto The Ceiling: that clutter of articles taped above the sports section in Kerckhoff 118.
It’s going to be hard to let it all go.
Although I harbor lofty (and need I say, improbable) hopes of becoming the next Sanjay Gupta, the reality is that I may never see my name in a byline again.
For four years, the Daily Bruin allowed me to call myself a writer. A sports writer. Scribbling ledes on the back of homework, dropping literally everything to take that coach’s call, knowing an unhealthy amount about UCLA gymnastics. Yeah, that’s me.
I was so excited when my first article was published in the paper. I went straight to the page and cut out the story to save it. I even Googled it and clicked on the link (I know, egotistical me). My name was written, “Bansari Sheth.” Not the most auspicious beginning, but it was a start either way.
And now, I’m at the back page of the metaphorical newspaper that is my college career. But that’s a fitting place to be because it’s really a beginning. I always read the Daily Bruin starting with the sports page anyway.
Sheth was sports senior staff from 2012-2013, assistant sports editor from 2011-2012, a sports reporter from 2010-2011 and a sports contributor from 2009-2010.