Since I accepted my admission to the Bachelor of Media Studies program at UBC in 2017, I’ve had the fortune of feeling that I made the right decision. I’ve enjoyed this program tremendously and am pleased to be graduating with a strong sense of where I want to go next. This clarity can most directly be attributed to my experience with Beacon. I began working with Beacon for our inaugural volume as an editor and had the great pleasure of becoming Editor-in-Chief for our second volume. It’s through this work, which I have been eager and excited to do despite the global circumstances, that I’ve discovered my passion for publishing and editing. Thank you to Catherine Zhu for founding this journal and giving me a place within it. 

This second volume would not have been possible without the team I was lucky to assemble this school year. Thank you kindly to our Senior Editors, Junior Editors, Web Designer, and Marketing Coordinator, who made the process of working on this journal so fun and productive. Thank you to the Faculty members who provided their comments and feedback during our second stage of editing, and thank you to the Bachelor of Media Studies department for their financial and promotional support.

As we publish our second volume of Beacon, I can’t help but feel proud of how the Media Studies community at UBC has persisted in its desire to create, explore, and play despite the global catastrophe we are living through. Thank you to all the artists and authors who submitted their work to our journal and to those who agreed to take on extra work these past few months to refine their pieces for publication. I admire your commitment to your practice in the face of difficulty and change. 

I’ve enjoyed every moment of my time with Beacon. I hope all of you who read through this volume feel inspired, as I do, to continue fostering your creativity – not just in spite of the great adversities we may face in this life, but also as a means to heal ourselves from them, to raise each other’s voices in their midst, and to keep reaching beyond them and towards the light that guides us.