#j4family

So this is what it all came down to; four years of blood, sweat, beer, and tears, missed deadlines, misspelled source names, failed news quizzes, unrecorded interviews, dropped phone calls, malfunctioning TV equipment, and so, SO many good times. It was a beautiful sight on Tuesday when my classmates, colleagues, and friends of four years rolled into Lago dressed to the nines to celebrate the culmination of our time here at Carleton j-school.

There is a camaraderie here that cannot be found in any other faculty at our school. We made it.

We survived the cut, and the cutthroat, and Kozolanka. We are the last j4k class to call St. Pat's home. We are the elite of Canada's next generation of journalists (I see you, Ryerson,) and one day our bylines will be spread far and wide across the globe, whether we're covering the newest war or the newest celebrity couple. We will succeed, because j-school taught us how to.

We are perhaps as eclectic a graduating class as Carleton journalism has ever seen. Our (smaller than average) group contains within it restaurant-owners, folk musicians, failed mayoral candidates, play-by-play announcers, NGO-starters, mountain-climbers, bakers, shit disturbers, slam poets, vagina warriors, alcoholics, and yes, a few journalists. Yet for all the different countries, jobs, or street corners that we'll run off to, for all the tears and fears that the next few years will bring, the one thing I truly believe is this: there are not 83 more competent people who will be unleashed on the world within the next few months than the ones getting down on that dance floor Tuesday night, and I am so, SO stoked to see where we'll all go from here.

So here's to you, j-school grads of 2011. It's truly been a pleasure. Good luck in everything you do, and don't go breaking too many hearts along the way. It's bad business etiquette.

I'll leave you with some words of wisdom from the immortal Dave Tait: "The whole point of this is to have fun. To have a life that you enjoy and are proud of... so that's the thing. Have fun."

-30-