I knew that I would have to write this farewell someday and even started planning what I would say in true writerly fashion. But now that I actually have to write it, it’s made graduating even more real and that is an uncomfortable reality to grapple with.

However, I recognize that all good things must eventually come to an end, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time writing for The Observer during my undergraduate career.

I joined The Observer during the fall semester of my freshman year as a fun activity to do in my ever-decreasing free time. While I had no formal experience writing for a newspaper, I had always gravitated towards writing and found I had a knack for words. More importantly, writing was an important safety blanket for me growing up.

As someone with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), I had challenges with social interaction and had a hard time making friends as I couldn’t comprehend or navigate social dynamics easily. It was hard to read other people’s body language and nonverbal cues, interpret their jokes and sarcasm and understand how to do the same. At times, I was bullied or excluded for being different. I also had difficulties with unscripted, spontaneous conversation and took longer to process the world around me, so I often got overstimulated from figuring out what to say next, especially since there were no “do-overs.” I felt I had to act a certain way just to fit in with everyone else, which was exhausting. There was a frustrating disconnect between my brain and my mouth. I had many thoughts and intense emotions that I desperately wanted to express out loud.

In contrast, the writing medium was a blank, minimally-stimulating canvas that never talked back or gave me a hard time, making all of my social difficulties blissfully nonexistent and irrelevant in those moments. The canvas was patient and gave me ample time to think about what I wanted to say and gave me permission to unapologetically express myself without outside judgment. Writing energized me. Even today, while I am far more articulate, I still feel more comfortable expressing my most complex and profound thoughts and feelings through writing.

I initially bounced between the news and opinion sections. While I enjoyed writing a news article, writing opinion articles was so much more liberating and empowering. It was a refreshing change of pace to set the tone for my writing rather than being dictated by current events. So, I switched to the opinion section full-time.

The Observer was critical in building up my low self-esteem. In addition to the social challenges I faced, I employed a “researcher’s mentality” when learning class material, which was very different from my peers. I took more time to grasp concepts and required extra clarification because I paid greater attention to detail and had to do a deeper dive on everything. This was especially true in my English classes, where I made complex and out-of-the-box arguments that weren’t always well-understood or appreciated. I had a hard time completing structured literary assignments because I had to be someone I wasn’t. As a result, I thought there was something wrong with me.

I am eternally grateful to The Observer for giving me a wide-reaching platform and a safe space to develop my own writing voice. With time, The Observer helped me embrace my out-of-the-box, analytical “deep-dive” research style when writing topics—marked by heavy background reading on topics and citing many sources (thanks, fact-checkers!)—with elements of vulnerability and personability. Interestingly, for many of my articles, I often ended up learning basic human psychology and sociology concepts. It just goes to show how successfully navigating the world and its many complexities boils down to understanding people at their core.

I always chose topics that were personally relevant and tried to take a different perspective to make people think twice, especially those that were highly discussed. Because these topics related to certain struggles I had at the time, writing these articles were therapeutic and helped me move forward. Most of all, there was always an underpinning of hope and optimism in my articles to boost everyone’s moods in such a negative world. When I sent in drafts for editing and publication, no one radically changed my nuanced arguments or fundamental voice, which was inherently validating. Getting these articles published did wonders for my confidence.

Over the years, I pushed myself to write about even more challenging topics that required increasing levels of maturity, vulnerability, research and nuance, furthering my deep love for writing. In my junior year, I wrote about how the mental health care system could serve its users better. This forced me to contend with my own unprocessed experiences navigating the system so my opinion could still be informed and logical without getting clouded by emotion. With great difficulty, I eventually wrote something decent. Conquering these topics and being able to wrap my arms around them made me feel like I could do anything.

The most rewarding part of my job was seeing how people responded to my articles. It was amazing to see people resonate with my words and value my perspective. I distinctly remember one person sending me an email stating they really enjoyed my solar eclipse psyche article and it was one of the best things they’d read all year. I developed a small group of followers who always looked forward to what I wrote and supported me.

All of these positive aspects of writing for The Observer made me slowly gain back my self-confidence corrupted by a system that tries to homogenize their students, something I’ll need in abundance as I start my PhD at the University of Delaware in the fall. I am sad to conclude my time with The Observer, but I take comfort in knowing that this has prepared me well to tackle the next exciting chapter of my life.