By Katie Poe, Backpage Editor
As “The Georgetonian” prepares to close down for the upcoming summer break, I would like to take a moment to reflect upon the Backpage and its purpose for the Georgetown College community. From the fruition of the Backpage’s self-discovery theme to its parting advice, this article will look back upon self-exploration covered in the 2023-2024 academic year.
The original idea to explore self-discovery for the Georgetonian’s Backpage began during the summer of 2023. After enduring years of self-suffering, shame and inauthenticity, I reached a point where I slowly began to reclaim myself through a long, difficult soul-searching journey.
Once I began to feel more comfortable and confident in who I was as a person, I realized that I wanted to be a voice to help other students who struggled as I once did. When I recognized the opportunity for “The Georgetonian” to discuss mental health and identity related topics, I reached out to the Editor-in-Chief to pitch my idea for the Backpage.
From the beginning, it has always been my purpose to help students explore, appreciate and better understand themselves. For many, including myself, the college years can function as some of the most important years in helping one discover who they truly are.
As a teenager, I often found myself living in the shadow of others, allowing other people to dictate my life without truly understanding or exploring who I was or wanted to be. College became a time of freedom and self-exploration, a true gift that completely changed my perspective of myself and my world.
Thus, the Backpage became my place to help others learn more about their inner selves. With the hope of assisting and encouraging others, the Backpage became my personal project to aid GC students in self-exploration.
As some committed readers may remember, I originally began the Backpage with personal topics. Much of my earlier writing came from my own life experience and hurdles. However, as the year continued, I began to branch out more to write about a variety of self-discovery perspectives, inspired by different GC students. I realized that by touching on topics that included the voices of GC students from various different backgrounds, I could help a wider audience learn more about themselves.
This year, I covered many different self-discovery topics, such as confidence building and learning from failure, with the perspectives of countless students.
As GC students step into the summer and the years beyond, I encourage them to revisit the self-discovery articles in this year’s Backpage if they need a boost of motivation, validation or inspiration to better understand themselves. Most importantly, I remind students to always stand tall with the confidence that they are not alone, as myself and the GC community will support students as they explore themselves in the years beyond.
In closing, I truly want to express my gratitude for the support of “The Georgetonian” staff and the GC students and faculty for this year’s Backpage. Thank you all for allowing me the opportunity and the space to discuss these topics and, hopefully, help students better understand themselves.
Tigers, it has been my pleasure to be your editor for the 2023-2024 Backpage.
Categories: BackPage
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