Right off the bat, implications trump events of the story. Beginning at the beginning, we learn of William Wesley Young, the college student who came to the University of Wisconsin from the east coast in the late 19th century to foundThe Daily Cardinal in 1892. Enter Big Theme #1: Buck the system, just make it happen no matter what. Young establishes theCardinal as a completely independent student operation, setting the tone for its history by refusing to go to the University for money (a rarity, we learn, for college papers then and now). And therein is Big Theme 2: Be a maverick, go independent.
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In the end, It Doesn’t End With Us is a sweeping story of what it has meant to be a college student in America for all these years, and a reminder that surviving those years means not taking the system for granted, going it alone, keeping the bigger picture in mind, and confronting impulses of the body and impulses of the intellect, if never quite resolving any of this.
A.