Editor’s note: The Daily’s editorial department acknowledges that this article is premised on a conflict of interest. This article is a special feature for Commencement 2026 that does not represent the Daily’s standard journalistic practices.
Maxwell Shoustal began his time at the Daily as a first-year with a bang: a controversial article for the Opinion section which asserted that Tufts students who wanted to participate in the CIA recruitment process should be allowed to.
“I was kind of excited to write it, because I felt like it was a controversial opinion,” Shoustal said. “I instantly got an email as soon as it was published from someone who was like, ‘I hate this opinion, you’re wrong.’”
Rather than being dissuaded from writing more pieces, Shoustal explained that this engagement was what made the process of opinion writing so enjoyable, as it meant that students were engaging with his ideas. His approach for opinion writing was about finding an argument that was both interesting and relevant to the Tufts community. These experiences taught him the importance of having “thick skin,” a mentality he brought with him as he transitioned to work on the editorial board.
While on the editorial board, Shoustal and his fellow editorialists also wrote a variety of pieces for the Daily’s special editions like Jumbo Month and Parents & Family Weekend. One such piece included a compilation of letters from the Daily’s editorialists addressed to their parents, which Shoustal described as “well-received.”
After his work as an underclassman for the editorial board and the Opinion section, Shoustal went on to be a managing editor in his junior fall and later joined the Business section in his junior spring. At the beginning of his senior year, he was asked to once again join the managing board, but this time, as a business director. In the fall, he shared this role with the current business director, Carol Wu.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to say yes, just because I didn’t know if I had the time or if I had the experience, but I knew that the paper needed someone to do it,” Shoustal said. “I accepted that opportunity because I thought that it would be the best thing for the paper.”
The new position for Shoustal was not without its stressors.
“When you’re the business director, the worst thing that could happen is that the paper goes bankrupt, and then there’s no more Daily,” Shoustal said. “So I definitely felt a lot of pressure.”
After graduation, Shoustal will continue to work part-time at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; however, he ultimately plans to attend law school. Although his career ambitions are not directly related to his work as a student journalist, Shoustal is thankful for the general experience the Daily equipped him with.
“Every time I have an interview, the Daily always comes up,” Shoustal said. “A lot of those skills are the same: the reading and writing, the very critical and rigorous fact checking. … It’s great nourishment, really, to be editing articles, because it’s [a] sustained discipline.”
As he leaves the Daily, Shoustal expresses his gratitude for people he met along the way, especially while he was on the managing board.
“My favorite memory is just all the friends that I met through the Daily,” Shoustal said. “Some of the nights spent in [the office], just joking around even [at] three in the morning, maybe you wouldn’t think that’s a good memory … but I think it speaks to how good of friends we were.”
