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Over the last two years there have been numerous occasions when I have felt like an old fart.

Whether I was sitting in a classroom discussion or working late into the night in the Daily Bruin office, there have been seemingly endless reminders that I am just a little too old to still be in college. Anyone here who has taken a number of years off before finishing his or her degree knows what I’m talking about.

These are the moments when you stop by a party, only to leave immediately to run to the store so you can have something to drink aside from boxed wine or discount vodka. Or when someone you had considered a peer expresses shock and dismay at the fact that you were born in the 1970s. Or when you find yourself, frighteningly, uttering the words “when I was your age.”

The truth is, I’m not really that much older than most UCLA undergraduates. It’s just that for some reason the difference between 19 and 24 can feel even bigger than the difference between annual tuition fees from one year to the next.

For the most part, this feeling doesn’t have much to do with relative maturity. My two years on this campus have given me the opportunity to get to know some of the hardest-working, interesting, passionate and, yes, wise young people one could ever hope to meet. Most of them, I am proud to say, work right here alongside me at the Daily Bruin.

With graduation day creeping closer, I have finally come to terms with what has really made me occasionally feel so ancient, and similar to how most things seem to work out in my life, this realization has come embarrassingly late.

To be honest, I think I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that I might be a gigantic loser. Deep down I feared that my years away from school in the working world had indeed made me different, but not, as I had hoped, in a good way. Instead, I was like some sad female version of Van Wilder, except I wasn’t having nearly as much fun.

But a little over a week ago, the work that I have done for the Daily Bruin, both individually and collectively with my amazing staff, was recognized in a small ceremony. Even though I’ve never been much for awards, I have to admit it changed everything for me.

I may finally be graduating from college, but it is a far greater accomplishment that I have managed to leave the smallest of marks on this newspaper.

The long and often rocky path I have taken to get through school has come to an end, and with it my time at the Daily Bruin has come to a close.

I am certainly proud of earning a degree, but it was through my many hours of work as a student journalist that most of my real education took place.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has been a part of my time here. You are the reason why I am now able to look to the future with hope and to feel, at this exciting and terrifying crossroad in my life, so incredibly young.

Mathis was the 2003-2004 Arts & Entertainment editor.