As a freshman, I wouldn’t have imagined that attending one Journalism meeting towards the end of the school year would get me to this point. I wrote one article that year, but I enjoyed the experience so much that I came back as a sophomore. My thought was that, because I liked writing, I would occasionally contribute to The Catalyst over my four years here. Flash forward a few months, and an opportunity arose for me to attend a nation-wide Journalism conference in San Francisco. This gave me a taste of the excitement of journalism: the issues that it can explore and the change that it can promote. For the rest of the year, I wrote articles using the skills that I gained at this conference, and sharing stories that were meaningful to me.

Junior year came around, and I was offered the position of News Editor for The Catalyst. This was incredibly exciting for me, and I loved getting to put together the News pages, as well as continuing to write articles. Last year was the first time that one of my articles was blocked from being published, as well as the first time that I published an opinion piece regarding a controversial school policy. These experiences helped me grow as a journalist, and showed me first hand the power of the media.

This year, I am extremely excited that The Catalyst no longer has prior review; what we publish is up to us. This was a progressive choice for a private, Catholic school to make, and I really appreciate the NDB administration for giving us the opportunity to share our voices in an uncensored platform. As Editor in Chief, I promise to evaluate each article subjectively and treat this right with respect. We all know that the media can be extremely biased, but, while I appreciate the power of a newspaper to influence its readers’ views, I don’t believe that it should only explore one side of an issue. My aim is to not only accurately report on school, local, national and global news, but also to provide a forum for student authors to share their opinions- whatever these may be.

The reason that I love Journalism so much is because I believe that it is one of the best agents of social change. This can be on the small scale, as I have seen within our school while working on The Catalyst for the past three years, or the large scale. My goal for The Catalyst this year is to be one of the many news sources that students can turn to in order to gain a better understanding of current events and to help determine their opinions on them. Thinking about the constant stream of information that students are receiving, I know that it can be difficult to decipher what is true, let alone try to formulate your own opinion on a topic. I hope that this student newspaper is able to provide clarity and demonstrate various perspectives on issues relevant to the life of an NDB student.

Obviously, this couldn’t happen without those working hard to put this paper together. A huge thank you to Mr. Rojas, the editorial staff, and all members of the Journalism Class and Club for granting me this responsibility and working so hard on this newspaper. Every person who contributes to The Catalyst is adding a new perspective to this collection of student voices, and it is important for me to include every member of the NDB community who would like to contribute. Lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who reads The Catalyst. Thank you for appreciating the work we put into this paper, and valuing what we have to say.