Welcome incoming Badgers!

This is an exciting time in your life, as I’m sure all of your friends, family members and SOAR advisers have told you already. Living on your own for the first time and exploring your interests is an amazing experience, and it all starts now. 

But it can also be a daunting experience. Coming to a campus with 44,000 students all doing different things to reach their dreams puts a lot of pressure on you to do the same. After all, college is supposed to be the best years of your life, right? 

So where do you start?

My advice is this: find something to belong to — something to take pride in and something to support. In doing so, this large campus will begin to feel smaller. You will start to recognize more people, and little by little, form your own community.

You may not find this right away. Each new situation takes time to get used to, and a huge life change like moving to college definitely will.

For you, your community might be in a club, intramural sports, your place of work or Greek life. Or even a combination of them.

For me, it took a few tries. First with clubs, then with Greek life and now here, at The Badger Herald.

Since 1969, we have been our own little community, supporting each other and the paper we have all grown to love. 

In the last 50 years, the Herald has seen many changes. From daily papers to weekly papers, the push to keep print alive, and the emergence of digital news and social media, The Badger Herald doesn’t come without challenges.

But it’s when past, present and future Heralders come together as a community that allows the paper to thrive for years to come.

At the Herald, your interests and passions can morph into whatever story, video, photo package, ad revenue or business experience you can think of.

So, I think you, too, can find your place here. Whether you’re a journalism, business or biology major — or anything in between  — The Badger Herald has a spot for you, and we can’t wait to welcome you into our own little community.

If you’d like to get involved with us this semester, whether it’s as a reporter, photographer, videographer, designer, coder or copy editor, stop by our new member meetings in the fall or feel free to email me at [email protected].