Next week marks the end of my freshman year. Here are five things that I’m never going to forget about my adventure:

1. The friends I’ve made

I came from a background where I went to a small church, I was homeschooled, and I wasn’t able to see my closest neighbor from our 50-acre property out in the middle of nowhere. I had friends, but mostly I had siblings, which are great and all, but there’s something about having other friends from other walks of life, other demographics, other parts of the world and even having to live with one! Being exposed to so many different people has been one of the best things that has happened to me over the school year.

2. The food I’ve eaten

At our tiny campus, there is only one dining hall: the Travis Memorial Dining Hall. It’s not as terrible as everyone likes to make it out to be, but it surely wasn’t the food I had at home. In particular, it’s going to be very hard to erase one particularly powerful food from my mind. I’m not sure what moron came up with the idea to ruin a perfectly good chocolate cupcake by putting sriracha in them, but I learned that day that even with innocent looking desserts, one must never assume and ALWAYS READ THE LABEL. Interestingly, ever since I started working in the dining hall I don’t believe that any more wicked creations of the sort have been served. Coincidence? Perhaps. But it makes a better story to say that I single handedly saved the dining hall from spicy sweets.

3. The places I’ve been

Playing old time fiddle and milking cows didn’t get me out the door much. Throughout high school, there was the occasional debate tournament, the occasional music lessons, but most of my life revolved around the little old blue building we called home. Everything changed in college! My friends were horrified to find out that I had never been to Taco Bell before in my life. That was very quickly remedied. So was Burger King, Wendy’s, Five Guys, A&W and others. There was no way that my dorm mates were going to let me go through freshman year without having been to all the essentials!

4. The things I’ve done

At our campus, there are always so many opportunities to get involved with practically anything you could want. For me, that took the form of knocking on hundreds of doors for a congressional campaign, traveling across the northwest with the debate team, and bible studies with my hallmates. Every one of these experiences has helped me to see the world differently, shape who I am, and to give me new connections that I would not have otherwise had.

5. The things I’ve learned

I just want to take the time here to thank all of my professors for being so, so awesome! Through all my classes here, I’ve been learning things that I’ll need for my life: academic skills and wisdom on how to manage my time, get over things that don’t go my way and how to persevere through my studies. Thanks again, professors.