Dear Underclassmen,

You've almost made it to the end of the fall semester! You're so close to completing one more round of classes and I know, because I've been in your shoes, that you are counting the minutes until you no longer have to deal with this anymore. You are wishing away your college career semester by semester, class by class, and I am here to tell you to stop. Stop wishing that it was all over and that you are a senior preparing to graduate. Stop wishing that everything regarding college was behind you. Stop doing all of that, and right now, appreciate the time that you have here.

Here I am, a first-semester senior, procrastinating and wishing that the end of my college career was not ending. In only five short months, I will be out on my own, away from the school that I have learned to call home and the classes that I have grown to love. No longer will it be acceptable to pull all-nighters in a library, drink multiple cups of coffee before 8 a.m. or cry at the drop of a hat during the first and second week of December. Everything will change and you won't realize how much time you wasted wishing that it was over until the timer is about to run out. Time is fleeting and pretty soon, you'll be in my shoes too. So stop wishing that it were all gone, even though I know that right now you hate everything about school.

You are sleep deprived, tired of writing essays, and sick of looking at flashcards, but so am I. I too am sick of all of these things, but you at least have more semesters to do it. Personally, my favorite time of the year is finals season because it is such an exciting time! You're tying off all of the knots to your classes, counting down the days until you get to go home, and you're spending time in random parts of campus with classmates and old friends who you may not see as often. Everyone is going through the same crisis and hard time, so the entire campus comes together in a time of sleep deprivation and complaints. Isn't it wonderful? So embrace finals season while you have it! Actually, embrace all of college.

I envy every single one of you because you all have more than one semester left at the best university in the country. I envy all of you because you don't know just how lucky you are. I envy all of you because pretty soon these will all be days of my past, a mere memory. Don't let this happen to you. So go kill your finals and remember that soon you too will be finishing your first semester of your senior year. Enjoy it all while you still can.

Sincerely,

A sappy senior