Let’s rewind to August 2011. We were the class of 2015 — the largest, most diverse and most qualified class in Elon history. We were 1,425 starry-eyed 18-year olds, unpacking carloads and shaking hands with our lanyard-wearing neighbors, ready to Experience Elon for all that our trusted tour guides had promised it would be.
In our quick four years, our class has transformed alongside our school – and dare I say, our soon-to-be Alma Mater. New buildings sprouted almost as frequently as Smith Jackson sent emails, “swipes” became “taps,” and a piano appeared in Moseley for our musical delight.
The nostalgia set in as Class of 2019 groups began appearing on Facebook, and I began thinking about all of the wonderful things – eh, okay maybe some not-so-wonderful – that the incoming freshmen class will never know.
They’ll look at us and baffle at the idea of actually swiping a phoenix card. They’ll complain about the line at the mail center, without ever experiencing the pain and suffering of making it to the front of the line only to realize you’ve forgotten your package slip. Worst of all, they’ll naively take their acorn from a basket under the oaks, unaware, and never knowing the class that traded their acorns for saplings just three months before.
What once was the largest, most diverse, and most qualified class to come through Elon, will just as quickly fade into alumni chapters across the country. Although our weeks are limited, and days numbered, there are some things we will take with us when we pack up one last time and leave the place we have grown to call home:
- Taco Salad Friday at Pan Geos
- Shadow boxes in Moseley
- Package slips for the mail center
- The procrastination we called Elon Confessions
- The fine dining of 1889
- When Tony’s was Sandy’s
- Thursday nights in the Greek courts
- When “lakeside” meant dodging goose poop on our way to Harden
- Hummus trays with soggy chips
- When the bars couldn’t serve hard alcohol
- When Tap House got their liquor license
- Tap House in general
- Acorn Eddie
- The Bator
- When the only food you would ever eat from West End was the free pizza on Tuesday nights
While no, I still don’t know the Elon Fight Song; And yes, I once asked a freshman where Global A was; I will graduate come May, and like many others, take these memories that we can so proudly now call our own and pass the torch to the start of a new Elon era.