Coming back to school for my last semester of my undergraduate studies taught me what it means to persevere. There are some big challenges up ahead, but it is sure to be thrilling. First of all, I'm still coming to grips that this is my last semester at Southeastern Louisiana University. Secondly, I want to make it the best one. Attending a university was scary at first, but i'm already feeling nostalgic about leaving behind the idea of it being a brand new experience in my life.

Coming back to school made me feel prepared, and as a senior I don't feel too naive. I have a clear idea about the classes that I have taken for my curriculum, and how to apply those skills working in the real world. Soon, I'll be going to be out in the real world paying bills and such while attaining my dream career. However, I don't feel as uncomfortable as I did when I came here for the first time, back in the fall of 2011.

After graduating from high school, my scenery changed so fast. Friends moved, and I had lost the idea of how to begin anew and what that meant for me. I'd forgotten about the fact that friends were strangers before you got to know them, and you can always manage to find similar people that you did in the past. I had to start all over, and there was no one there to tell me exactly how to approach that. There are counselors, but they rarely ever talk about how to do jobs that are not the typical 9-to-5, so creative students are out of luck in a high school in a small southern town.

After doing some research about what I truly wanted to do, attending school was not so bad, but it felt queasy at times when I was just learning some of the skills I needed to know, while trying to do the projects at the same time. I felt behind my peers, but later on I started to teach myself what I wanted to know, and what I was not taught. At first, any new experience will make you nervous, but if you do research about this stage in life you won't feel too bad. Most people do not know what they are doing, they keep going forward and handle what life gives them. I used to think that the older people around me knew exactly what to do when they were in my generation's shoes, but they didn't. Everyone kept along with what was taught to them. This past summer has also made me even more grateful for having this opportunity to come back, physically safe on campus to finish up my studies.

Also, nothing is guaranteed and there will be failures and successes, but most importantly, we all grow from it for the better.