Senior. In. College.

I’m sorry, can we all take three steps back please? Let’s take a peek into our childhood days. Imagine being an 8th grader. What were your biggest concerns? Either the Abercrombie top with the pink cliché saying, or the neon yellow Wet Seal tee for the upcoming school dance? (OK I guess my outfit choices still concern me). But regardless, can that time of your life even be considered real “thinking”? Imagine skipping around your junior high school thinking about your future. You thought to yourself ... “Oh high school, wow. Everyone is so big, so cool. They’re all so mature”.

OK pause—“MATURE”... this cracks me up. I think every day for the rest of my life “mature” will be given a whole new meaning. To think someone in high school was mature is joke of the century. Do we ever really “mature”?

Resume—so HIGH SCHOOL. They all got it going on right? That’s what your 8th grade mind thought. Then you think of college. That time was so far away you couldn't even fathom what it would feel like to be an actual student in college. So you kind of tucked it away in the back of your head for as long as you possibly could. The idea seemed too far away to even entertain. Honestly, the only time I ever came near the thought of a senior in college was Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. Even then I couldn't quite piece together the idea that she was applying to graduate school.

Pause—GRADUATE SCHOOL: the current struggle that gives me anxiety at the mere sound of it.

Resume—But now here we are. Not only in college… but SENIORS. How? Or as my 8th grade English teacher would say: Who? What? When? Where? How?

The time has come. You say you’re 21, but you feel like you’re 16. You should have your future career planned out, but you can barely make it to your 9AM class. The thoughts are frightening. You’re the “oldest kids on campus”, yet you still walk around feeling like you have absolutely no idea what's going on—but you sort of do? It’s a weird time to be honest. You have a few more accomplishments than you expected to have, but your resume is still laughable. You have an idea what field you want to go into, but the thought of actually committing terrifies you. And let’s be real… despite the fact that 19-25 we “form our life habits”, you still throw in the random Cup O’ Noodles or one too many beers on the weekend… but its fine because its still college, right?

But then it nags at you. You start receiving emails about expected graduation dates— family members start asking when and where graduation is. That’s not even something you can begin to think about yet. You think to yourself, “Oh I’m not graduating for a while!” But sadly, that’s just not true. It’s only a mere 8 months away. That’s only 2 semesters. That means only 2 sessions of final exams before you receive your college diploma…

*cue nervous breakdown*

All I’m saying is the pressure is real; the pressure to finish strong, the pressure to make the most of your last year with more freedom and less responsibility than you’ll ever have again. We always hear “time flies” but man, does it sure fly from freshman to senior year in college. So what now?

We cry, we laugh—a little of both perhaps? I must admit it feels pretty amazing sometimes. Thinking how far you've come from your naïve freshman self. I sit back and look at the incoming freshman and wonder just which turns they'll all decide to take. How many times they'll change their major, or how many times they'll decide they can’t do it anymore, only to realize they really can. I hope they all see the opportunity ahead of them—the chance to do good, the chance to fail. I hope they keep their heads up when they think nothing is going right, only to realize the change they seek starts from within themselves. I hope they meet so many people, and feel like they have a safety net of those special few they keep around. I hope they stay up all night studying for a test and get to experience the incredible feeling of walking out of the library and watching the sun rise.

I’m sure I’ll say this a million times in my life, but the past 3 years have been the most impactful and profound yet. I feel like my head got twisted on a little tighter. I have a little more of an idea of who I am and what I want to do with my life—major emphasis on the “little”. I’ve seen some unforgettable things, and partaken in ones I’m not always proud of. I’ve studied until my brain felt like mush, and I’ve laughed so hard I remembered what it felt like to be a kid again.

So to all the seniors out there that just begun their last year in college: I hope you feel a little wiser. I hope you’re as scared as I am to be at the cusp of the working world. I hope your browsers are full of graduate school tabs with unfinished applications. I hope you guys also realize that we are all in this together. The world is in our hands, and we have the power to make a change. We have the power to open our own eyes and the eyes of those around us. I hope the world hasn’t stolen your spirit quite yet, and that these hopeful words don’t make you scoff. I hope you’re all studying what fascinates you, and simply talking about it makes you “nerd out”. I hope you all make yourselves proud. Proud that you’re a bit closer to where and to who you want to be. Proud that you've fallen so many times but have gotten up in the end—proud that you stuck with college this far. I hope you have a safety net of friends and family that lift you up when you can’t lift yourself. I hope you’ve made some stupid decisions that'll always give you a good laugh. And most of all, I hope you give every last day in college everything you've got, and remember that each day here is a chance to make this world just a little bit brighter.