In what world does a pre-med student who forgets to read her Slack DMs end up running the Daily Bruin’s social media?
This one, apparently.
I thought the job would be simple – post a few graphics, write a couple captions, maybe throw in a TikTok or two between Anki flashcards.
Something chill. Something casual.
Instead, I found myself live-tweeting protests, handling breaking news at 2 a.m. and debating which emoji to use for caption credits like it was a national security issue.
Honestly? Worth every typo.
When I joined the Daily Bruin as a social media intern, I didn’t know that I was signing up for one of the most formative experiences of my time at UCLA. I was a sleep-deprived pre-med student looking for a creative outlet – somewhere I could think about captions and not dissections.
I thought social media would be low-stakes. Passive. Light.
It wasn’t.
From my first real coverage assignment, it became clear this role wasn’t just about posting. It was about translating – making a 2,000-word article resonate in 232 characters. It was about trust, precision and pressure. It was about representing the hard work of an entire newsroom in a single sentence or image. And slowly, it became about community.
When I first joined, one could say the social media section was on “Do not disturb.” Not gone, not forgotten – just kind of adrift, like a ghost on the Slack sidebar. But post by post, story by story, I started to see what it could be. And when I became the social media director this past year, I decided we weren’t going to be a sidebar anymore.
We were going to be a headline.
So I did what any aesthetically picky, emotionally invested editor would do: I rebuilt everything.
I revamped our workflows, redid our calendars, created multiple style guides (and then remade them), launched new strategies and basically bullied the section back into existence – lovingly, of course. I ran training sessions, made templates and wrote more captions than I care to count.
And yes, I became the person who rewrites a caption four times because it just doesn’t feel right.
I lived, breathed and occasionally cried social media.
But I wasn’t alone.
Enter: the Online section.
Together, we redesigned our newsletter, rebuilt our social tools and shared a collective digital brain for the better part of three quarters. And by “we” I mean Tyler, Donny, Ed and Sakshi coded while I dropped in every 30 minutes to ask if the header font could be just a tiny bit smaller.
I made it my mission to lovingly antagonize the Online section – sending chaotic Slack messages at ungodly hours, hijacking meetings with laughter and requesting “just one more change” to Meow even though I already had six tabs open. They let me. They also somehow didn’t block me.
That’s real friendship. Or fear?
To Ira, our brilliant Sports editor and my personal MVP, thank you for letting me crash the sports world and somehow belong. You gave me the chance to experience coverage on another level – from press boxes to post-game tweets – and I loved every second.
And Nicole – my La La Land coffee companion, co-Copy chief and human version of command + z – I don’t even know where to begin. You were there for the caption crises and the existential ones, always just a text (or a street and a vanilla latte) away. Whether I was doubting a verb tense or my life plan, you somehow always knew what to say. Thank you for editing my chaos, on and off the page.
Finally, to my friends in Enterprise and Data – thank you for letting me crash your Google Docs (sorry for accidentally deleting that one paragraph) and brainstorms. Our sections usually operate on opposite planets, but I’m so grateful we got to find new ways to work together. Whether it was showcasing longform investigations or finding new ways to visualize reporting, you reminded me that good storytelling is everywhere – and even better when it’s shared.
I won’t pretend this year was always easy.
There were moments when the weight of it all hit – when I was juggling Instagram requests, caption rewrites, breakings and medical school applications, wondering how I could keep going.
But I did, because of two people: my incredible assistant editors, Ava and Naomi. You were my rocks. My sanity. My midnight backup plan. I would have been swallowed whole without you both.
And still, I kept coming back to those Slack channels. Still posting. Still caring.
Because I did care. A lot. About the words. About the work. About the people behind it.
The funny part? None of this has anything to do with what I’m doing next.
I’m going to medical school.
There is no direct line from captioning a UCLA basketball win to practicing medicine. No one’s going to ask me about font sizes on a carousel in my residency interview (though I think I would ace that). But this job changed me. It taught me to lead under pressure. To listen better. To care more. It taught me that words matter, tone matters and community matters. All things I plan to take with me, stethoscope in hand.
To the future generations of Social Media directors: check your Slack DMs. Seriously. Be better. Be bold. Take risks.
Trust your instincts but also your team. Learn to ask for help. Stand up for yourself, even in uncomfortable situations. Write like it matters – because it does. Social media is the front door of the newsroom. Make people want to come inside.
And know that you are part of a long, chaotic, beautiful tradition of student journalists who cared enough to get the wording just right.
I didn’t expect the Daily Bruin to become my home. But it did.
And somewhere between “Meow” and “BREAKING,” I think I found myself too.
Saoji was Social Media director 2024-2025 and a Social Media contributor 2023-2024.
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