Everyone knows that feeling. The feeling when something is ending, stress is piling up and tensions are running high. That feeling is the end of long road of a college semester. However, when you are in college as a senior, your perspective on a closing semester is quite different. Life in general as a college senior on the verge to graduate is different. You can often times find yourself comparing your life as a freshmen compared to life of a senior. You see a lot of things as “the last” of something. The last time you go to this bar every Wednesday, the last time you go to this academic building, the last undergraduate exam you have to take or the last time you struggle as a student to find a meal that will keep you full longer than 20 minutes.

This sentimental feeling of nostalgia comes and passes in waves. It is certain; there will be days following graduation where everything reminds of us college alums of the good old days. As the infamous Andy Bernard from the beloved TV series, The Office, once said, “I wish there was way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them. Someone should write a song about it.” There is so much truth to this saying which simply proves to live presently in every ordinary or extraordinary moment.

On the other hand, there will also be days where our college lives were just a distant, blurry memory embedded in our past and far looked past. With this in mind, as I head into my last and final semester of college, I hope to enjoy college standard living the best as I can, despite the below average eating habits and poor quality housing situations.

It’s hard to wrap my head that graduation is approaching in just short of six months. To some, this day would seem that it would never come. To others, it did not come soon enough. I am happy to say I have experienced a unique combination of both. The hours I spent studying for exams and papers that kept me up for hours beyond an acceptable bed time and days I walked to class with four layers of clothes on were the times I had wished to be elsewhere than college. Yet the times I spent hours awake beyond a normal bedtime to be with friends were times that had made college years disappear faster than me finishing a binge-watching session of Gilmore Girls on Netflix.

As college seniors move forward and constantly catch themselves finding “the last” of everything, it’s easy to look past the future. However, the actual day of graduation, which is solely meant to commemorate the hard work university students spent in pursing their degree is classified as “commencement day” otherwise defined as “beginning” or “start”. It’s hard to find a start in all of the things that are ending in our life which could very well be deemed enjoyable: fun memories, minimal responsibilities and easy living. However, it is safe to say that despite all of the good times we are leaving behind, I am fully ready to start a new chapter in my life and begin this commencement period.