When you spend enough time at The Ticker it’s inevitable that someone asks, “How did you join?”

To steal the words of incoming Ticker Editor-in-Chief Andrew Marzullo, “I walked in here one day and never left.” But there’s a reason I never left over the last four years. 

From staff writer to news editor to marketing director to business manager. 

I’ve seen late-night closings, long editorial meetings, Relay For Life, and Undergraduate Student Government elections.

I’ve helped build the newsletter and Instagram page and dealt with unreliable writers and disagreements with the Baruch administration. 

From 2015 to 2019, over the course of writing more than 100 articles, I stuck it out at The Ticker for one reason.

The people. 

Without you all The Ticker is nothing.

Not just because we obviously wouldn’t be able to produce a fantastic newspaper every week, but because we wouldn’t be able to produce the environment that keeps people coming back through the media suite door each and every day to edit articles, fix an InDesign layout, attend an editorial meeting, send out a newsletter, or just chill.

Your friendship — the warmth that envelops me when I walk through the media suite door — is what kept me coming back.

Thank you to former Editor-in-Chief Nicole Clemons, who in the fall of 2015 took pity on an awkward freshman named Jonathan and showed him how to cover a USG Senate meeting.

Thank you to former Editor-in-Chief Damla Bek and former managing editors Tom Seubert, Sumit Poudyal and Stevie Borrello, who shaped my early time at The Ticker by being welcoming and teaching me how to be a savvy editor.

Thank you to former Photography Editor Calvin Rong, a dedicated photographer who once made a sword out of a piece of metal and a Nikon camera strap.

Thank you to former News Editor Edwin Morel, who showed me that being news editor could actually be fun, and that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously.

Thank you to former Managing Editor Maria Markowicz and former Editor-in-Chief Joe Esposito, my Ticker mom and dad forever. 

You both taught me how to laugh harder, manage better and be stubborn when needed. I will never forget the times we had on Ticker trips and other ventures.

To those who I didn’t name, know that if you ever interacted with me in the context of this wonderfully wild newspaper, I am forever grateful. 

Thank you to all of those who gave me advice, wrote a story for my section, listened to me vent, or lent their shoulder for me to cry on during a tough Friday night.

As for the current guard of The Ticker, there’s no need to list out every single one of the names of the friends I love so very much because you’re all right there on the masthead. 

Victoria Merlino and Yelena Dzhanova — thank you for sticking by my side these past four years, through the good times and the bad.

My advice to the future members of The Ticker is difficult to fit into the remainder of a 550-word article, but here is the gist.

Life is short, so don’t let anyone give you crap if you know in your heart that you are right. 

Some people don’t understand this newspaper. 

They don’t understand how a group of college kids can churn out some of the best local coverage this city has ever seen and still have the time to maintain a 3.5 GPA. 

Some people don’t even know what The Ticker is or what it does. That’s okay too. 

As long as you know what you have accomplished here in NVC 3-290 then it was all worth it in the end. 

I have to stop writing now because I am going to cry.

However, I will say one more thing with confidence — The Ticker was one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

Jonathan Sperling is The Ticker’s Business Manager.