Dear Senior Year,
I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to you just yet. I know that you’re already gone, and have been for over a week now, but it hasn’t really set in yet, and I’m not entirely sure when it will. Real talk: graduating college is very, very weird. To recognize that my Harvard is not “Harvard” but the Harvard that was made from the presence of specific people in that place at that time—and then to further recognize that Harvard isn’t mine anymore, in that sense, and that it’s really just… over? How do I wrap my head around that? How can I miss so many little and big things all at once? And now, how do I make that leap from being a senior to being a freshman again?
Senior Year, you weren’t everything you were cracked up to be, you know that? You might not get that a lot, but I mean it. No one ever really mentions that the promised land of “senior spring” may potentially only come to fruition after finals, or that turning in your thesis may offer only a brief respite before the storm of catching up in the other three classes you’d nearly forgotten you were enrolled in. Or that applying to jobs, grad programs and fellowships and trying to figure out what you want to do next can be insanely hard to manage alongside school, all while maximizing time spent with friends. Or that it can be a little—and sometimes a lot—sad and strange and invigorating to transition the new leaders of the organizations that made your college experience what it was. Basically, Senior Year, you threw hard prioritization choices at us, and I just want to put that out there before retrospect softens up your edges. You were different than I’d thought you would be, and more difficult, and I’d really doubted that I would ever call you my favorite of these four years at Harvard.
What made you more bearable than any other year, though, in spite of the very high highs and very low lows—and what, ultimately, did make you my favorite year here—was the perspective you brought to the table. That “It’s Senior Year!” mindset you cultivate (see related entries under: “YOLO,” “Last Chance Dance,” and “#SeniorSpring”) is comprised of equal parts motivation and anxiety: motivation to make the most of the time left in college, and anxiety that you, well… somehow won’t. Senior status puts the pressure on. Racking up the “last” this and “last” that becomes habit. You learn what it means to miss things before they’re gone.
That mindset and sense of urgency are what made senior year what it was for me. It’s what made me go out on a Tuesday and stay up late having life chats with friends the night before my last final exam, but it’s also what made me pour more passion and energy than ever into academic projects that mattered to me. It’s what pushed me to go to the networking event I was intimidated by, to actually make plans with that friend from freshman year that I always meant to reconnect with, and to stick around the dining hall long after I finished dinner to catch up with blockmates. On those rare sunny days this spring, it’s what made it more than okay for me to lay out by the river with my sorority sisters for just a little bit longer. I walked more slowly around campus and looked up from my phone more. I took more pictures and had more real conversations. I was more honest with my professors, my friends, and myself in hard moments. I checked some things off my bucket list but at the end of the day wasn’t able to complete it, simply because other wonderful opportunities popped up along the way and I went along with them without over-thinking, and realized that was just fine.
Senior Year, I grew to love the way you pushed me to expand my comfort zone, put myself out there, stop pushing things off and start penciling them in. Senior status made it rational for me to maintain a sense of confidence even in my most stressful moments, and possible for me to readjust the scale on which I’ve come to measure my self-worth and my “productivity.” But, now, as I get ready to turn in that senior status and become a freshman again, I can’t help but think that the beautiful perspective you led me to embrace may not be sustainable.
And I’ll really miss it.
I know we can’t stay seniors forever; it’s just not the cycle of things. And it shouldn’t be—if it was, we would grow complacent, exhaust the urgency, lose the value in that perspective. We have to be freshmen in order to be seniors again down the line, and the learning curve may be steep. All the same, I don’t think I have to abandon you entirely, Senior Year. The way you challenged me to understand the privileges I’ve been afforded with humility and grace, while recognizing my right to have confidence in my own abilities is what got me through this last year. That’s what I’m hoping to hold on to when I move at the end of the month, start a new job, and fully let go of Harvard, Kirkland House, and the Literature concentration as part of my immediate identity. I’m hoping that my memories of you will lead me to take risks sooner, appreciate more deeply, and try even harder in that new environment. I’d like to believe it’s possible to be a freshman again without forgetting how it felt to be a senior.
And so, until we meet again, cap’s off to you, Senior Year.
With love and gratitude,
A 2014 Grad