To be a college media adviser is a unique privilege.
I often meet a student as a first-year, sometimes even as a high schooler, and I work with them for years as they do hard things and learn about themselves and grow up. Then I have a front-row seat when they fly off to do amazing things in the world.
I know the lingo. This year, it’s been “manifest” as a verb and “I hate it here” as an adjective. (To my fellow Gen Xers, they don’t actually hate it HERE, they just hate it here. I think.)
I know the skinny on the professors: which ones are tough but fair, which ones make their final projects due on LDOC.
And then there’s the music.
After 13 years, this is my last week at The Daily Tar Heel, and I’m feeling it. My job at the DTH is frequently difficult, but there’s also something comfortable about doing work I love in a place I know better than anyone.
The songs on this list all trigger some memory for me, of a particular student, a particular moment or a particular era of the last 13 years. It’s not all of them. The years I worked nights are overrepresented, and I make no claim to the inherent quality or safe-for-work nature of any of these songs. Though to be sure, some of them slap.
I was never lying when I said that I have three kids at home, and 200 more at the DTH. This Office DJ playlist is a goodbye gift for my DTH family. I love you.
