Letter to the Reader
Photo From ebony.com
Dear Reader,
It is my absolute honor to welcome you to the Fall 2023 volume of The Conglomerate! With the start of a new volume and a new semester, I have been thinking a lot about beginnings. As a society, one of the beginnings that we talk a lot about is the beginning of a new year. Many people have lots of New Year’s traditions, ranging from starting a new planner to making a meticulous list of goals for the year, and, of course, it would be hard to forget about New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions have never really been effective for me, and I can’t even remember the last time I seriously tried to set one. Instead, I try to do other things to mark the start of a new year. This year, I made a Pinterest board; it includes photos that represent what I hope to achieve and inspirational quotes. One of my favorite quotes on the board is from Max De Pree: it goes, “We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.”
I love how this quote pushes us to change. For many of us, change is scary and daunting because it means we have to deal with new situations that we’ve never faced before. Change is like heading into a dark forest without a map and being told that if we just keep walking, then eventually we’ll reach a sunlit meadow again. But change can also lead us to incredibly and spectacularly beautiful things. As this new issue marks the change from last semester’s volume to this semester’s volume, I like to think that it marks the beginning of something beautiful. Last year’s editorial board and staff writers were absolutely phenomenal, and I am so proud of what we accomplished. But I am even more excited for what this year has in store for The Conglomerate. We have so many fun things planned, and I cannot wait for you all to find out about them. If you see me in person, I might even tell you a hint about one or two of the things we have up our sleeve.
Before you read more of this issue, I want to express a little bit of gratitude for some of the people that make this paper possible. This paper would literally not exist without the Student Government Association, our editorial board, our staff writers, and, most importantly, our readers. If you have ever mentioned the paper, typed our URL into your browser, followed a QR code to an article, or just read a single word from our website, I would like to say thank you. Writing the articles and making the content is fun, but getting to see how all of you enjoy The Conglomerate is what makes it meaningful.
I am so excited to see how this paper grows and changes this year, and I know that at the end of the year, we’ll have achieved something beautiful and marvelous.
Sincerely,
Jordan Fong
