I started this weekend with a lot of worry—about the future (obviously), about pulling a Lizzie McGuire on my way across the stage, would my family be too loud for the others… The thing about this weekend is that it feels like the last time I’ll be in Binghamton, even if it isn’t. Maybe it’s like that for most people when they graduate, but still.
It’s a surreal feeling to know you might never again take once dreaded steps from C4 aaaaaaaaaaall the way to the Student Wing and Hinman. (As someone whose friends all lived off-campus or on the other side of it, which might as well be across town, this was a genuine struggle.) Or that you won’t be waiting in the never-ending line at Jazzman’s between classes, or beg your parents to add just ten more dollars to your meal plan. Maybe it’s the realization that you’ll never again have to dress for sunshine, rain and snow all in one day, or deal with “Quiet Hours” or take a final.
Maybe it’s something more personal, like the idea that you might not live close enough to your new friends (from grad school, law school, work, what have you), to stay up until four a.m. just talking about the different ways you look at life and yourself. Maybe it’s the loss of those professorial mentors and using their office hours as an excuse to just hang out with someone who’d be your friend if they weren’t an “authoritative figure.”
For me, it’s this newfound supposed freedom and everything that came with college: voting, eating mac and cheese bites and cookie dough for dinner and then again at midnight, having sleepovers with friends on Tuesday nights because we were too lazy to get up and go to our room right next door.
I’m even going to miss every lesson I learned, and there were countless. When you’re in college, sure, you can talk to your mom or a classmate or friend or counselor, but ultimately, the choice is yours. You have the freedom to decide how to handle each situation and there’s something wonderful about that.
College wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, I’m never going to claim that it was. But it did introduce me to some amazing people—both friends and professors—places, and, ultimately, a better version of myself. When you think about it, that’s all you can really ask for, isn’t it? I mean, we came here to get an education, but there’s so much more to life than reading about it and being tested on it. The real value of college isn’t just the degree or connections you walk away with, but the experiences that shaped you into who you are today.
Acclimating is an easier process in theory than in practice, and it wasn’t until sophomore year when I really got my act together academically. I found people, and then I found new people, and then, well, new people again. Most importantly though, I found myself in the process. Each friendship helped me to grow in some way or another. You really learn a lot about yourself when you step back and look at who you spend time with. If you let them, which so many of us do, certain people will always drag you down, others will hoist you up. It’s hard to let go, but you have to only keep the hoisters around. (Is that even a word?)
College showed me how to know that I’m worth fighting for—to fall down—into some deep rabbit hole—accept falling down, and climb my way up again. So if I could do that as a degree-less, scared little undergrad with no real life experience, it shouldn’t be that hard in the real world. Right?
