This is it. These are the last words I will ever write for The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, after God knows how many thousands. I’ve had a good run, but it’s over. Finished. Ended. Done. Fin. There will be no more after this.

Now all there is left for me at the University of Massachusetts is my last final and then I’ll be a free man. Then the normal thing is to find a job, find a place to live and generally become a productive member of society.

However, I still want to be a journalist, so the normal thing is just not going to happen because nothing is ever normal for journalists.

But working here with all these great and wonderful people in that windowless, airless dungeon of an office as the fluorescent lights beat down on my brain, staring at a throbbing, flickering computer screen filled with prose I have to put in readable form before time runs out has been an experience. It happened. It was an event in space-time. So many memories I can never forget, no matter how hard I try to repress them – but I dished it out as well as I could take it.

But seriously, the people I’ve worked with at The Collegian, as well as my friends from Student Valley Productions and the Newman Center, have been the best people I’ve ever known in my life, even you, Herb.

Doing The Morning Wood was always amazing; the most important issue of the year, without a doubt. I still can’t believe I wrote an entire editorial in “LOLCat” English and I think I did an awesome job with the letters. I’m still disappointed I couldn’t use a picture of a duck in BDSM gear in this year’s issue.

As Editorial and Opinion editor my goal was to make my page a place for free speech. I tried to reach out to the various groups on campus that have organized around a cause or background and I welcomed everyone to the section who was willing to commit. I think I succeeded, but not as much as I would have liked.

During most of my time at The Collegian I’ve tried to present a satirical take on life at UMass with my columns and the “Five Reasons Why” because someone has to. Far too many people here take themselves way too seriously and inflate their importance far in excess of the actuality. The biggest culprits are members of the Student Government Association, some of whom seem to forget that they’re a pretend government. Campus radicals are another group on a major ego trip: look guys, no one knows what you’re talking about and no one cares. But the UMass administration’s collective ego exceeds anything any student could ever hope to delude themselves into believing. My dearest hope is that more satire will be found in The Collegian in the coming years and everyone on campus will be able to take themselves less seriously.

Basically, UMass, get over yourself.

On a more serious note, the one lesson I have learned over and over again is that students need to learn the school’s past. We have almost no institutional memory and that makes us very vulnerable to professors and administrators who spend more time here than we do. Things that happened five or more years ago are completely lost to the mists of history. The Collegian and its archives could be a valuable tool in the fight for student rights, but they need to be used.

Meanwhile I’m going to continue to wonder why everything about farewells seems trite and cliched. What do I care? I’m getting out of here.

Eat, drink and be merry, for today we (figuratively) graduate.

Matthew M. Robare was Editorial and Opinion Editor. He can be reached at [email protected].