I am a photographer; I can’t remember the last time I actually wrote in The Daily (it was probably a caption in 2013 or something). However, I do remember my first time in The Stanford Daily office – it was the Volume 242 fellows meeting, and I was a terrified, intimidated freshman who happened to like photography. Walking around the second floor of an office that wasn’t that much smaller than my entire high school, I found myself amongst a couple guys standing next to a “photo” sign. We talked cameras; I signed up for my eighty-seventh mailing list and left thinking nothing would happen.

Of course, it is only when nothing is supposed to happen that everything begins to happen. The first photo assignment I ever did was a couple days later. It was a women’s soccer game, and I was terrified. Somehow, I got through it, and once I started seeing my name in the paper, it became a drug.  Bolstered by the encouragement, I took more and more photos. Eventually, I ended up getting amazing opportunities as a Daily photographer, from being on the field at our second consecutive Rose Bowl game to seeing my name underneath a photo in The New York Times. My time here gave me so many opportunities that I just wouldn’t have gotten as a general Stanford student, and I was lucky enough to pick up friends along the way.

I’m not great with words. As a journalist, I chose the camera as my tool. But for The Daily, there really are no words to describe how amazing my time here has been, and for that, I’m eternally grateful.

Contact Avi Bagla at abagla ‘at’ stanford.edu.