It feels strange to be making an introduction right now. Fall is usually the time for things beginning in college. Sweaty-palmed freshmen are forced to play icebreaking games with litanies of name, major and favorite ice cream flavor. They meet in crowded dorm rooms and sketchy basement parties, and many plan pilgrimages in search of alcohol, adventure and, at times, a new identity.

But for me, this is the spring before my senior year. Now is the season for choosing between laying on the lawn and going to class. These are the nights for making elaborate toasts to friendship and warding off a real world that might not welcome you with games of beer pong and a round of “Ring Out Ahoya.”

But as out of season as this feels, I have been slated for an introduction — likely to be as awkward and bumbling as my freshman year.

So here it goes:

My name is Erin, I am the next editor for the arts and entertainment section of The Marquette Tribune, and my favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip.

What will this column cover, you ask? Good question, I respond. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure yet. But hear me out.

Often what I love to cover and read about culture, entertainment and news is the unexpected or quirky. I want to hunt down the answer to that small, local, un-Googleable mystery. I want to talk to strangers, so you don’t have to.

Here are some of the burning questions that perhaps this column will one day answer, or perhaps I will forget entirely:

What is it like inside Milwaukee’s Microphone Museum? (There really is one!) Why does Fr. Pilarz love Bruce Springsteen so much? (Is it just the New Jersey thing?) What is Don Draper really thinking? How will the Violent Femmes do opening Summerfest this year? Who serves the tastiest cheese curds in all of Milwaukee? (tough research, I know) Who rings the bells in Marquette Hall, and how did they convince them to play the Harry Potter theme that one time? Where can you find Milwaukee’s coolest street art? Do we really need  three different reality shows about the inner workings of pawn shops? (I mean come on.) What is an “Ahoya” anyway, and when did Marquette become so inclined to ring it out for “ra ras”?

So, in short, I don’t know exactly where this column will take me. But I think that’s what makes writing about Marquette and Milwaukee so exciting. You never see that weird  story coming. I mean, who among us ever expected a rogue bat to be tamed by the tune of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” at a Marquette basketball game?

That’s one lesson I learned well and often this year working for the Tribune. This must be one of the only gigs on campus where you can cover a drag show one week, look behind the scenes at the wedding ceremonies in Gesu the next, and, on occasion, get to interview one of your idols.

This year on the Tribune has given me a fantastic learning ground. I got to watch a great editor, Matt Mueller, who knows more about movies than any human person I know and whose writing and leadership I’ve admired in my role as his spell-checking, pun-patrolling assistant editor.

The thing about college is that there is this constant cycle of endings and beginnings. Here we are at the end of another semester. The end, I am sad to say, of another year at the Tribune. It is hard to say goodbye to many of the people I worked with this year. But in this season of endings, I am excited for this new beginning as editor.

I hope to live up to the role. I hope to keep our content fresh and fun, and I hope to learn and write as much as I can about the endlessly interesting city and ever-welcoming school that I have come to call home.