A Year in Review

This past year of the Highlander has been exciting for the opinions section — lovingly called “Ops”— with new additions and losses to its daily content. Beyond its recurring structure, the opinions section has seen the revitalization of the comics section by past Opinions Editor Jameson Adame and Art Director Andrew Golden, where students can practice their artistic skills to display their opinions in a different format, thus expanding the number of students involved to more than ever before. R’Perspectives, pieces where students share experiences and advice, furthered the ways students could engage with the opinions section by allowing them to be more personal with their opinions — beyond the standard write-your-opinion-on-a-recent-event pieces that populate a newspaper’s opinions section.

 

The Importance of Comics

Nowadays, comics seem to be a standard in every newspaper at a national or local level. Bringing wit and hilarity, comics are necessary to any newspaper section as it enables it to expand its modes of expression. There are those who want to participate in a newspaper’s creation, but may feel more comfortable in a different mode of expression, such as drawing. By revitalizing the comics section, the opinions section has taken part in this broader engagement for both the audience and artists. With the last comics dating back in 2013 by Grace Kang, the comics section began anew with Kevin Cantero’s comic, “Dance Moves at Heat,” which featured a character dancing up and down the comic strip. This was continued further by amazing works by artists like Rachel Adair, Jameson Adame, Silkea Islam and Danni Wei. No matter if the work was black and white, colored, photoshopped or penciled, each comic created this past year has been a great addition to the opinions section, because each provided its viewership a quick laugh while still stating a constructive opinion via visual form.

 

R’Perspectives: Needed Life Advice

Beyond covering opinions on recent news, an opinions section should consist of personal opinions, which the Highlander’s opinions section is able to do via R’Perspective pieces. Consisting of writers recounting their life stories, R’Perspectives allow for readers to learn how previous UCR students at the Highlander have tackled obstacles in the past. Published in the midst of last Fall quarter’s dead week, Estefania Zavala’s “How to treat yo’self wisely” retold her experiences of unhealthy procrastination, sleep deprivation and sugary snacks with humorous anecdotes and fantastic language in order to advise students to be healthy as they progress through college. Jameson Adame and Sandy Van wrote heart-felt farewell R’Perspectives of their time at UCR discussing everything from friendships to sentimentality. Such articles gave life and, dare I say it, hope to an opinions section that covered dreary and controversial topics (which are necessary, but come on now, it’s fun to read about life experiences). Thanks to writers Jameson Adame, Honeiah Karimi, Nelson Luu, Quinn Minten, Michelle Mitani, Kate Rusmiselle, Sandy Van and Estefania Zavala, the number of R’Perspectives has been ever increasing and we at the opinions section hope it continues to do so.

 

Concluding Goodbyes

Beyond improvement, this year also brought a few goodbyes, such as past Opinions Editor and Editor-in-Chief Colin Markovich’s opinions column entitled “United Community of Riverside,” where he discussed issues pertaining to the city of Riverside from poverty to local government. Also, some of the writers have left to join the real world, away from college lives. We hope they can take whatever skills and experiences they gained here at the Highlander and spread their metaphorical wings to success. So, thank you for choosing to write for our section (and not news)! It’s been a great year for being opinionated.