by Ethan Rodriguez
Becoming Co-editor-in-chief of Loco Mag has been the most unreal thing ever.
Once upon a time, I was a Freshman who had just changed my major from English with a magazine concentration, to Media & Communications with a concentration in Multimedia Publishing. The reason for this was despite my magazine concentration, I found myself unsatisfied with the English degree track. Mostly due to the amount of creative writing classes I had to take, and I was more personally interested in non-fiction writing.
Eventually, after talking with many department heads, and a couple of academic advisors, I found a better fit. I immediately enrolled in Media & Com classes, and I started to fall in love with my degree. It wasn’t until my second semester that I took CM120A: Publication Practicum as a way to get into nonfiction writing on campus. At the time, the magazine was under Danita & Ryan, two seniors I very much looked up to as a bright-eyed Freshman. They seemed so cool and executed things so seamlessly.
Back then, they were who I aspired to be.
As the years went by, I continued to take Loco Mag as a class every single semester. It started to become something I enjoyed, far beyond the journalistic reasons. The class is fun, the people are great, and the content we produce is beyond amazing. In a way, I fell in love.
Alongside Loco Mag, I have an ongoing freelance situation with PBS Newshour and WHYY. I always have my hands on a short film, documentary, or article. Not only do I take part in the production and creation of content, but I also media educate high school students over the summers and I facilitate a storytelling workshop during the school year. So, I’m a busy guy.
However, despite all my many media obligations, Loco Mag has always felt like more of a passion project, rather than an obligation. It was something I took part in just because I have a passion for content creation, it’s something I would be doing regardless of my outside responsibilities. I do it because it makes me happy.
In Loco Mag, we have an executive board, and it is usually ranked by seniority. That means executives are usually juniors or above, but it could also be based on contribution, so these lines aren’t set in stone. Well, when I was starting my junior year, despite my contributions, I was the only one without an executive position. I took it upon myself to ask the Co-editors in chief at the time, “Jewel and Jake, and expressed a want to do more for the mag. This was when I was presented with the role of PR Manager.
While in this role, I created and managed digital signage and facilitated outreach for the magazine. I tried to put my best foot forward since my role was new. Though honestly, I felt a little uneasy in comparison to the other established execs, nevertheless, I tried not to compare myself too hard. After all, we all cared about the same magazine.
At the end of my junior year, when I found out I was going to be one of the two running Loco Mag in the upcoming year, I was both over the moon and scared out of my mind.
In a way, I’ve always wanted to be here. I have a lot of love for Loco Mag, and it’s a space I’ve become comfortable with in ways I never thought possible. I want to help progress the mag, and even, help improve it when I can. Not to mention, my co-editor-in-chief is a very capable young woman named Allison, who has her own cool stuff going on, and I just know she cares about the mag as well.
Even though this is my first time running a magazine, I hope at the very least, this year’s staff will know that I care about the mag, and hopefully, they’ll know I care about them too.
