If you had told me four years ago that I would be editor in chief of SMU’s school paper, I would have looked at you like you were crazy (you all know that look). I would have smiled, and then *politely* said, you are mistaken — I will be president of my sorority in four years.

When I was younger everyone would tell me that college would be the fastest four years of my life and that the years only go by faster as you get older. Well, I wish I took those words more seriously. I remember my high school graduation from Northfield Mount Hermon, a small boarding school in Western Massachusetts, as if it was yesterday.

During my time at The Daily Campus, I have seen a lot of changes. I first started here in 2009 as a staff photographer for the then photo editor Michael Danser — who taught me everything I know now about the field of photojournalism. I’ve worked for six editors in chief: Sarah Kramer, Ashley Withers, Jessica Huseman, Taylor Adams, Meredith Shamburger and Nicole Jacobson, and I have taken hundreds of thousands of photos at over a thousand separate events at SMU and abroad.

All right, everyone, we need to keep our cool. We’ve come to the end. We have no more scheduled class. Finals are today, and we’re getting ready for the big push towards summer. Right now I’m sure many of you are in libraries or Umph, studying, eating, wishing you were finished for the semester, at home or a party and relaxing for the first time in months.

I consider myself reasonably difficult to offend. More often than not if someone’s made a particularly insensitive comment, it’s bound to have come from me. However, a few weeks ago I was appalled to see a picture that a certain SMU student had posted on Facebook.

132 Daily Updates taught me… It is necessary to set three different alarms if you plan on getting there before 6:04 a.m. Magic peppermints are always a plus. Yes, I know that the ready cues are “ready, roll, take,” but if I’m directing I expect you to read my mind.

I decided to become a journalist when I was a freshman in high school. I have always loved talking to people and communicating. Journalism seemed like a natural fit. So, I started writing a column for my local newspaper to begin building a career. When I came to SMU, I knew I wanted to get involved with the student paper as soon as possible to continue on my career path.

I’ve never been good at leaving, but this goodbye is harder than most. It’s not the fear of getting a job or growing up that makes me sentimental, but it’s the knowledge that things will never be the same. SMU has been an incredible university. However, there was one small division that changed my life.

People who know me know that there are few things about SMU that I don’t like. People who know me well also know there are a few things about SMU that I absolutely loathe. One of those things is the much dreaded “Phony Pony.” Somewhere down the history of SMU, some poor marketing person drew a very sickly looking Peruna and propagated it across the campus and beyond.

 It is an election year, but does it really feel like it? One may ask. Red loyalists in the Tea Party may conjure it as the calm before the storm, but I would reason with their pretentious claims. In retrospect, one can observe that in American election history the incumbent president has often had the last laugh.

The conventional wisdom in the media is that President Obama is more than likely to be re-elected in November. There are some reasons to believe this, namely the fact that the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, is not very exciting to anyone, has been damaged by the long primary and is just not that great of a politician.

Each academic year, one student is selected to serve on the highest governing body of Southern Methodist University, the Board of Trustees. The Student Trustee has one vote in the 42 person board, just like any trustee. He or she represents the student perspective along with nine other students who sit on the board’s standing committees, including the student body president.

Republican During the lame duck session following the Republican wave that swept through congress in 2010, the Democrats tried to use the last few moments of their huge majority to shove through something called the DREAM Act, which would have granted citizenship to children of illegal immigrants who attend college or join the military.

It’s that time of year again. Final exams are right around the corner, projects and papers are due, and the entire campus seems to kick into study-mode overdrive. It is also time for the inauguration of the student body’s elected representatives for the coming year.

It’s that time of year again: the headcount of students in the library skyrockets, students are overwhelmed and professors are speed grading. Finals are right around the corner and students are scrambling to review a semesters worth of material for their final exams.

The level of political discourse in this country is embarrassing. For most Americans, politics no longer feature a serious discussion of policies and issues. Instead, 24-hour cable news, social media and a variety of other things make our elections about a never-ending series of something-gates.

I'm going to preface this article by saying that I haven't read or watched “The Hunger Games” and I can't say I have much of an intention to do so. Young adult fiction just isn't really my thing. I distinctly remember reading the Harry Potter books as a child and enjoying them for a brief while, but I never felt compelled to dress up as one of the characters while going to see one of the movies.

SMU is arguably the best-watered piece of fertile ground in Dallas County. The university is continuing its watering campaign. Last week, an email was sent out to the student body that said, “The seeds must be kept wet so they will germinate properly.

Upon reading the investigative reporting article in last Monday’s edition of The Daily Campus, I was rather disappointed at its careless journalism, especially since it did not at all represent the information that I gave when interviewed. Before I had a chance to fully formulate a reply, I was further troubled to discover that Vice President Alex Ehmke’s response article was also full of misinformation, just like the article that he criticized.

For the majority of students at SMU, freshman year in Umphrey Lee is just a fact of life that you deal with in your first year or two and then finish. Some students, however, live on campus multiple years. I fall into the latter category. After three years of eating from the SMU Dining Plan, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the system.

One little-known fact in SMU’s history is that the first student on the rolls for the inaugural fall semester in 1915 was a woman named Flora Lowery. This may seem like an insignificant bit of trivia, but it actually demonstrates something important about SMU as a community.

Republican I’m going to start this column with what I am sure will be a controversial statement: polarization in politics is a good thing. A recent study showed that Republicans are more conservative now than they have been in the past hundred years, and Democrats are close to being more liberal now than they ever have been in the past hundred years.

This week we take a moment to honor the founders of our great university, and celebrate our progression into the second century of our university’s history. So what’s to honor? Is it our perfectly manicured lawn that Dr. Turner always boasts about or our plethora of cooling fountains? What about the buildings that we study in, the scholarships we receive or the professors who spend their time educating us? Do we honor our schools, our silly memories and the value of our degree? This week, we honor it all.