As a senior at Texas A&M, I prepare for a school year of lasts: last football games in the student section at Kyle Field, last late nights laughing with my roommates in my college house, last Bid Day, last study sessions at Lupa's coffee, last office hours with cool comm professors, and last road trips to see bands that only college students have heard of. It is a sad thing to see a year before me of saying goodbye and closing a chapter of my life that can never be relived. But it is an opportunity to assess what I have gained from my three years here and what I have contributed to the lives and community around me.

What do I hope to leave as my legacy in this place, with the people I had the chance to know? It is clear what Texas A&M and my unique college experience have given me, but it is a tough task to land on what I want to have given.

It is easy to leave college with a list of activities and achievements on a résumé. Honestly, if you want a good job or acceptance to a graduate program, you better have those things.

But that is the easy thing to do—to flit around from organization to better organization, from friend group to more popular friend group, to go into situations and relationships seeking what you can take from them and to move on. It is the hard thing to do to stay, to sacrifice when times get hard, to give of yourself for the sake of others' good rather than for your Instagram post or the future job it might help you score.

I hope my legacy is that I have sought to have integrity rather than popularity, that I was faithful rather than flighty, that I was giving more than I was taking. I hope to those I leave behind, I leave deep investment into the organizations of which I was a member, consistent friendship to the people I was able to know, sincere effort to think critically in the classroom, and a general sense of being present.

I want to have shown up. I want to have dug deep roots in the relationships and places I care about. But I know that if I ask my closest friends, those who have watched my three past years, they will not say I have perfectly lived this legacy. If I am honest with myself, I do not see this characteristic lived without flaw in my college life.

So, to you freshman, take my advice. Show up, invest in, and give to the people and causes that you care about. And to you seniors, it's not too late. We have one year to hunker down and give to those we're around and to this great university.