That’s it. You’ve done your part—you’ve joined student organizations, broadened your horizons, organized some events, authored some bills and policies good enough for the next three years’ batches to function. You’ve exhausted it all, perhaps already looking ahead. There’s no looking back.

Some would say this is where it ends. You will pack your stuff and feel like leaving a part of you behind in the halls you frequented, sometimes even late into the night. They will see your work as nothing more than the necessary training meant to prepare you for the real world, but hear me when I say this: everything you’ve done was as tangible as real could be.

Remember those overused, worn-out “sleepless nights” phrases you use to describe your experiences whenever you look back on all the extra work you had to put in? They have become the sort of cliché many of us have lived.

Lately, I’ve come across literary write-ups about how what used to define your daily life can end on a random afternoon. They call it sepanx. They call it midnight blues. I understand the feeling, but I respectfully disagree. No, everything you worked for does not end on a random afternoon. 

As a student journalist, I did not spend years reporting on issues that affected real students just to call them simulations. The difficult editorial decisions were real. The stories we fought to publish were real. The criticisms we received, the abominable commands to take stories down, the pressure to remain silent when speaking up would have been inconvenient—those were all real. Every article we wrote had the potential to inform, challenge, and hold people accountable. Every story we sparked invited real conversations.

Participation, therefore, is not seasonal. Advocacy does not expire with a turnover of duties. The responsibility to ask difficult questions, to remain informed, and to speak when silence is easier does not end with our terms.

Whatever it is you’ve prepared yourself for throughout your service, it is your responsibility to make it count. Good governance, technology and innovation, culture and arts. Go on, lead the charge. Be the person you so boldly announce your country needs. 

Tomorrow, no one will call me their editor. Good. Because then I can be more than just a title.

I’ve been doing this for years. Tomorrow, I’m jobless. And yet I want to remain the person this entire experience asked me to become: someone who refuses to look away, who believes difficult conversations are worth having, and who understands the call for greater participation. Sure, there were moments I cherished that will not carry forward, but long after my byline disappears from these pages, the convictions will remain.

Looking back at everything I had poured into this Publication, years of service without—I dare say—much return, I have come to know that it doesn’t simply end on a quick reflective afternoon. Not when doors close for the last time. Not when roles are filled by a fresh lineup. Not when ink dries up. 

Your journey as a student leader may end here, but the service endures.

Photo slider by Naomi Hannah de Lima