In high school, pretty much everyone spends the first three years looking forward to senior year. Not only are there (usually) privileges that come with being at the top of the school, like sitting outside during lunch or getting to leave school early because you aren’t taking as many classes, but you know it means you’re that much closer to the exciting and fantastical world that is college.
I had a blast during my senior year of high school; going all out for the homecoming game, dressing up with my friends at prom and all that fun stuff I had waited to enjoy as a senior. When I got to college, I looked forward to my senior year. Yet, as more time passed it became less like this exciting conclusion and more of a looming deadline because I don’t know exactly what comes next like I did in high school.
Homecoming senior year of college isn’t quite as exciting as homecoming senior year of high school. It just reminds me that this is the beginning of many last somethings this year. I know that should make me all the more motivated to go to the football game and get decked out and red and black, but it doesn’t. After all, is this year really going to be any different from previous years? The Terps might win or they might not (who really knows at this point?). We, as students, will stand for hours, yell and cheer and chant the chants. We’ll be cold and probably get bored after the first quarter and want to leave. We’ll barely pay attention to the score as we talk to our friends and start fights with the opposing teams’ fans. It’s the same old, same old.
Then again, my roommates and I made a senior year bucket list that basically declared we would go to everything would could and embrace our senior year to the fullest. We included all the classic UMD traditions, like swimming in the fountain and sneaking into Byrd stadium at night, and we added things like going on a College Park bar crawl and taking an exam drunk, but we also have a bit more tame ideas on the list like going to a game of every sport and checking out as many free events on campus as we can. Obviously, that includes the homecoming events and I can’t break a perfectly good bucket list. It is one of my last chances to act like a crazy person and get away with it because “I’m only a college student, I don’t know any better.” It’s a great excuse and I’m running out of time to use it, especially knowing that this year there will be a beer garden, I’ll probably need it at some point.
Freshman year everyone is always so enthusiastic about any type of campus event, especially big football games like homecoming. Everything is so new and exciting and the new students want to experience everything they can. They travel in packs with everyone from their floor in their residence hall because they haven’t made any permanent friends yet, they paint their faces and layer their necks with red and black beads and they try to sing along to the fight song even though they haven’t memorized all the words yet. Four years seems like such a long time and freshman have no idea how fast it really goes until you blink and suddenly you’re a senior facing your last homecoming game ever. So this year, I think I’ll be inspired by the spirit of my freshman self. I’ll go to the game, I’ll wear every piece of Maryland gear I own, I’ll yell the fight song at the top of my lungs and try to forget about the fact that it’s my last homecoming. I might not know what comes next, but I do know what happens right now and I’m going to make the most of my time left at UMD.
Photo: Brittney Flack