I’d like to take this opportunity to take my hat off to every Northeastern student publication. I’m currently president of Woof Magazine, our campus lifestyle magazine. (Insert shameless plugging to pick up a copy here.) I originally took over Woof as the editor-in-chief at the end of spring 2012, after previous leadership fell apart, partly based on their personal drama and partly on a lack of interest (it was Woof’s first full year as a publication). To make a long story short, the new president and I were left with no experience, no precedent and virtually no assistance from the previous leadership on a magazine they had founded and left to flounder. We were lost. We picked up the pieces, and on our own determination and metaphorical shoe leather, worked our asses off to put them back together and create something great. We never looked back. Sometimes I feel like the work never stops – the amount of hoops to jump through for the Student Government Association is unbelievable, not to mention the difficult process of grooming freshman journalists or designers into seasoned semi-professionals, as well as a smattering of business and pre-med and every other majors. There’s the writing, editing, re-writing, re-editing, photography, design, marketing, the works. It can be exhausting, all for a magazine that I understand most people will only pick up to for a few minutes, then toss.

The thing is, I’m not here to complain. I love it. Sure, I wish it had been easier at the beginning, and of course there are nights when I have 10 stories to edit and 25 people to email, all in addition to my homework, and I feel as if I have to crack open the AP Stylebook one more time I’m going to stand up in the middle of the quiet floor and scream, “WHY!” But I thrive on being busy. I’m proud of how far we have come. We’re getting ready to publish our sixth issue, and I couldn’t love my staff more. Most importantly, being on Woof makes me appreciate every other student publication: The Huntington News, Tastemakers, Spectrum and the rest, who I know work just as hard as my staff and I do to bring news and entertainment to the entire student body — for free. So next time your readers pick up an issue, I hope they realize how much time and effort of their fellow students they’re really holding onto.

–Kristen McCleary is the president of Woof Magazine.