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When people say we’re elitist, I start laughing. Most of us are loud, opinionated and cynical. But elitist? I wonder how the rumor got started.

We eat our lunches in an unventilated office while making frantic phone calls, and finish writing our articles only to go home and stay up late writing papers. We stalk professors and students to make sure they get a shot at talking.

Between reporting and writing, most Daily Bruin news reporters spend much of their time arguing with other staff members about everything from international politics to student fee allocations. Yet glamour and political change don’t feel like the payoffs of the job.

I was motivated by my curiosity, my resume, my need to get over my inhibitions and my desire to be part of a community. You could say I got everything I wanted, and as a bonus acquired a love for cheap wine and black coffee.

When it comes down to the work of reporting, sometimes just getting the story at all is amazing.

A story doesn’t have to break new ground; it’s exciting to listen to different people’s stories, see where they lead you and put them together so others can take an abridged version of the same journey. The tiny pieces of the community come together on the newspaper’s pages.

In many ways, the Daily Bruin staff has been my community. They were there to rave about how fantastic Library Special Collections is or how exciting it was to go door-to-door in Weyburn Terrace and start connecting how extensive the problems were with students’ apartments.

With other staffers I’ve shared countless parties, several late nights, toasts to the end of the I-team series and USAC elections coverage, a trip to where the newspaper gets printed, my first visit to Las Vegas and a handful of 4 a.m. realizations that we’ve done nothing but critique the paper all night.

I can only say it’s been an absolute privilege to work with everyone who makes the paper happen. They are some of the most intelligent, introspective and unpretentious people I know, and they’ve made me eager to pursue journalism outside of UCLA with the same enthusiasm.

I hope the excitement of breaking the story, whether or not it’s within the scope of Weyburn Terrace, keeps next year’s staff working with the same passion.

Bialik plans to spend the next few years figuring out if she’s the journalist or academic type.