This past weekend, as I helped hundreds of students move in to their dorms, I reflected on my past college experiences. Many of the students unpacking their cars were moving in for the first time, settling in to dorm life and learning to navigate the campus. Surrounded as I was by a multitude of excited faces, I felt a certain kind of melancholic nostalgia. I will be graduating at the end of the year, and most of the things that these students are experiencing for the first time, I will soon be experiencing for the last.
There are definite benefits to doing some of these things for the last time. I’m sure I will be very excited about purchasing my last overpriced textbook. And never again will I have to go through the arduous process of jumping through hoops for the FAFSA. There will soon be a last time I will have to sign up for classes, feverishly copying and pasting CRNs to get into that last spot. It will also be nice to let go of some of the stress that tends to build up around finals week. However, it will not be so easy to leave other things in the dust.
I have had an on-campus job my entire college career. It has been a comfortable and enjoyable constant in my life, quickly becoming a second home to me as I became accustomed to college life. I met some of my best friends at this job. But my last day on the job is quickly approaching. Soon I will be tossed into whatever job pools the ‘real world’ has to offer. (I just hope I don’t drown.) And I’m sure after a few years in reality, I will really be missing student discounts.
Clubs have also been a large part of the past years of my life. I became involved with Quidditch Club very early on in my freshman year, and though my attendance occasionally strayed, I always came back to it. Now, I am a proud member of the team and cannot believe that someday soon I may be playing quidditch with them for the last time. I also started a club during my time at Western. I hope to set it up this year to be sustainable for years to come, even after my absence.
I remain optimistically apprehensive about my future. When I was little, I thought of college as a mildly terrifying and confusing inevitability. But now that it’s coming to the end, I find myself thinking very similarly about the ‘real world’ that lies beyond. I sometimes find myself yearning for the past, wishing for a ‘do-over’ that will give me one more shot to fix all the mistakes I have made on my way here.
The truth is, if I fixed those mistakes, I might not be where I am today, surrounded by friends and anxiously anticipating my senior year of college and all that follows after. No matter the sadness I may feel as things end, I realize that, as cliché as it may sound, an ending is also a beginning. And I look forward to the last of my college firsts this year as I embark on adventures with friends old and new.
