Morris Hills Hilltopper would like to shine a light on our graduating seniors of this year, Shriya Surti and Nathaniel Hong. With hard work and dedication to get where they are on the paper today, they are here to share their thoughts on their experiences throughout the years on the paper.

“I first started Hilltopper 3 years ago,” says Nathaniel. “I initially wanted to just write articles with my friend when he asked me to join and I was like yeah, sure, so I joined. I used to be on the soccer team so I wanted to write about the team and how they’re doing,” Nathaniel adds. “Then after, I was the social media manager my second year, so I managed the social media account and the website. Now I’m the photography director so it’s been a fun 3 years just writing a bunch of articles and talking to a bunch of people in our school, and asking for photos or interviewing them,” Nathaniel ends off the statement with.”For future writers I would say do your articles on time and gradually do them. Don’t just do them at the end or do them late because I used to do all my own articles late basically. Also, have communication between all the executive positions or whoever in the club and definitely reach out to more people and ask them questions about a certain event and how to release your article,” Nathaniel ends off with.

“I started Hilltopper my freshman year and I started off as a staff writer. I didn’t really know what was happening and I just wrote articles with my friend. It was mostly seniors at the time so that was okay, but I liked writing…I always grew up loving writing,” says Shriya. “So I was thinking maybe this could be my way of channeling writing into my academic work. Since then, what I wanted to do was make it more inclusive for upperclassmen as well as stopping it from being just a senior and junior thing and have all the grades,” Shriya adds. “Since changing that, it’s been really great, I just love doing Hilltopper with my leadership,” Shriya states. “Some advice I would give is, if you’re going to become a senior soon or upperclassman, just remember that academics are always important. But always make time for yourself, and your extracurriculars. The things that make you happy. Because without that balance, you’ll just kind of feel like you don’t have a purpose,” Shriya ends with.

Congratulations to both Shriya and Nathaniel from everyone at the Hilltopper for making so many great memories and accomplishments with their time both on the newspaper and here at Morris Hills. Good luck in college and for what the future holds!