Congratulations! The Old Gold & Black is excited to see you take on the new challenges of post-undergraduate life as your final spring in the forest comes to an end. Although your eight semesters have likely been some of the most challenging in Wake Forest’s history, you will be a class that is uniquely prepared for a world that is in dire need of what is consistently replicated year in and year out on our beloved campus: community.

In this special graduation issue, we have compiled the experiences of 41 senior students. Each story offers a window into the unusual life that is lived here at Wake Forest, through records of exceptional academic triumphs, professional accomplishments, personal victories and funny memories. Everyone in this issue is quite different from the average American college student, and so is every member of our student body.

This truth is what makes our Wake Forest community invaluable. Anyone can find a friend. From Deacon Place to the Reynolda Trail, there is a person for everybody; an irreplaceable friendship, full of life-enduring memories waiting to be experienced.

For years to come, you will look back on your college years and wish to return to this place and these people. You will wish you could go to one more football game, date function, president’s ball or frat basement. 

You will want to come back, throw your cares to the wind for a couple of hours and lay out on the quad with your friends, watching the busyness of Work Forest from your green oasis. You might even miss some of your favorite classes, and wish that you could relearn your passion for your major like once before.

No matter what reason will make you come back to Wake Forest, remember that above all else, you’ll want to return because of the people who were around you. They made your years in college some of the most important times of your life.

You and your classmates are the ones who drove change, who inspired your professors with your intellectual curiosity, who dared classes of students above and below you with your remarkable achievements. When you reminisce about all the times you reached your greatest successes or felt the joy of pursuing whatever you loved most on Wake Forest’s campus, remember how your classmates helped you get to that moment.

In these pages, you will find a chronicle of all of these moments that helped to make Wake Forest such a special place. Every feature in this edition was written with a deep admiration and gratitude for the profound effect you have had on our time at Wake Forest. This is our thank you.

I would also like to offer a special thanks to my predecessor, Alexandra Karlinchak, who will be graduating this spring. Without her excellent leadership of the Old Gold & Black, our newspaper would not be close to the remarkable beacon of independent student journalism that it is today. We will remember the many lessons and happy memories she helped to give us during her time as editor.

Now, as you venture out into the world that exists beyond Winston-Salem, take your classmates with you. No, you don’t have to literally travel with one of your classmates, although that might be a fun thing to do. Instead, take with you what these people are to you.

Take the late-night, reckless college memories with you as you begin work in the real world. They will help you to remember that life is supposed to be lived, not worked at. Take the moments in which you felt like you couldn’t overcome the hard work and responsibilities that were being thrown at you, and then did with the help of others. These memories will strengthen your belief in yourself as you face new obstacles. Take those quiet moments, where you and your classmates experienced that rare feeling of peace and tranquility while going through the motions of life on campus. You’ll need them to help you remember to find that perfect balance of work and life.

All of us here at the Old Gold & Black are excited to see you take on the world. With the important bonds you have made with people in the Wake Forest community, we know that you will be well prepared for anything that might come your way. We hope that you won’t forget to come back and visit. You will be dearly missed.