With talks of imminent budget cuts  and classes that seem to fill up faster and faster, the question may come up of what the journalism program and this newspaper at Bakersfield College adds, and whether we should keep it or not.

It would be a devastating loss to cancel the program or to stop the publication of this paper.

This paper has a long-standing tradition of being published since 1929. It has served the BC community for a long time, and the community would be losing something if it went away.

Our thousands of readers would have one less place to get their news. They would be losing a publication that speaks for and covers the stories that concern the people on this campus.

Yet, even if you ignore what we do for the community and our almost century-long tradition at this school, the loss of learning, a kind of learning that only the program can provide, would leave a hole in the education at BC.

By publishing this paper, students learn things like teamwork, communication and work ethic at a different level. At this paper, students learn the actual steps it takes to get something published. From interviewing, writing and editing, to actually putting together the pages of the newspaper one by one, we learn the entire process here. It is the same process that any newspaper in America goes through.

A class that offers this sort of real-world experience needs to be kept. So often the college experience can seem cut off from the real world. Here we learn what it’s really like to make it as a journalist. We learn what it actually takes and showing students what it really takes to make it in their career goals is invaluable.

But the most valuable thing that we would lose is the most important part of not only education, but of life, the human path of self-discovery.

Many, many students have found their passions in life here at The Renegade Rip. Whether it is a passion for the beauty of photography or a passion for the ability for words to capture moments in time, everyone needs to find what propels them through life.

The value of offering that opportunity to find what it is you are meant to do is something that adds to the world. So many stories of human growth and discovery would be extinguished if this paper were to disappear. It is those stories that add to people’s lives and will continue to add to people’s lives as long as this paper survives.

The Renegade Rip is more than just 12 pages of paper; it is a place where people can learn like no other place and add to their lives like no other place. It has been serving this campus and community for almost a century.

Let’s not let something as temporary as the economy and budget problems erase something so beneficial to all of us.