I remember the feeling all too well, sitting in the Cowan Center watching each of my friends walk across the stage with the biggest smiles across their faces. Glowing with emotions of, “I finally did it, I’m finally done!” Then the emotions when they got the calls of job offers, and accepting those offers and just thinking to themselves, "Here’s the start to my life."

I attended all of their graduation parties. I sincerely congratulated each of them, letting them know how proud I was of them. But what they didn’t know was that, as I watched each of them walk across the stage, I thought to myself, “That should be me. Will that ever be me?” Every graduation party I attended, as their moms were crying happy tears that their baby boy or girl was growing up, I wondered to myself, "Will I ever see my mom cry those tears?"

Overhearing the conversations that they had over the phone with their new employers, I told myself it would be a miracle if I ever get a phone call like that. It almost became embarrassing to watch and to go through time and time again, because it started with the upperclassmen that I knew, then continued on to my friends and classmates that I should’ve been graduating with, and now it’s the underclassman lapping me and crossing the finish line, while I seem to be running in place. After many breakdowns, tearing myself down and battles within myself of whether or not to give up, I finally told myself that it's not about who finishes the race first, but who never gives up to cross the finish line.

I’m now 23 years old. I graduated high school in 2011, and I was your typical student: I didn’t care for school and if it wasn’t a requirement nowadays, I most likely wouldn’t go. But now it means so much more to me than just a piece of paper you get after slaving away for four years, or, in my case, more than four): It’s a piece of paper that holds my future.

I have two older sisters, and the oldest was the student who broke records for swimming at the university she attended. The middle sister was the scholarly student, overachieving, just naturally getting on the Dean's List, graduating with her bachelor's and master's before I could even attain an associate's. So the bar was held high for me, but it was a bar that I held high for myself. My parents were beyond amazing and would’ve supported me, no matter what. I not only want to make this dream a reality, but I want to make them proud. They joke and say that hopefully I’ll graduate before they're in wheelchairs, but what they don’t know is that this joke hits home with me.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes throughout my college career. Honestly, I was lazy, never wanting to study or do what it takes to achieve in each class I took. I’ll even admit that I failed cinema my freshman year. Cinema, a class where you watch movies and take a quiz. Yup. That was me, the girl who failed cinema. It didn’t stop after that. I was soon after put on academic probation and then suspension. I took two years off from school, moving from home and trying to transfer and then always coming back. I always knew that I needed to buckle down and get it together, but then one day, it finally hit me. After countless struggles that I created and watching each friend move on with their life, it finally clicked that if I’m going to get that damn piece of paper, I needed to change.

I know there’s many of us out there who have the same struggles, who watch their friends, siblings and the underclassmen graduate before them. I know how it affects you, how stupid you may feel, how you just want to throw in the towel and give up, because the thought of graduating only feels like a dream. That’s what I would tell myself, that graduating only belongs in my dreams, because I feel as if it’ll never happen. But that’s where we're all wrong. It took me talking to some others who are going through the same thing that I am to realize that I needed to stop being so hard on myself and quit crying about it, because it was all in my hands. If I wanted to walk across that stage, if I wanted to get that call and if I wanted to see my parents cry those happy tears, it was up to me to do it.

According to the “Myth of College Degree,” 40 percent of college students graduate in four years, and that 60 percent graduate in six years. Sixty percent! So yes, we may be part of the 60 percent, but at least we're not part of the 30 percent of students who drop out within their first year.

We're the triathletes who encounter swimming, but drown in our own situations that hold us back from continuing on to the biking. Then during biking, we're the ones who get a flat tire because we decided not to prioritize enough. After that, we're the runners who decide to take a break and walk, even though we can see the finish line, because we're too lazy. But all that matters is that we swam, biked and will eventually run across that finish line. So join me, the girl who failed cinema, who is now the girl on track to graduate in the spring of 2018, to never giving up.

I look forward to seeing all of my fellow triathletes at the finish line.