Dear Seniors,
I’m sorry everyone is asking you annoying questions about your life and your future right now. I’m sure you’re tired of explaining your future plans (or lack thereof) to your parents, your classmates, your professors, and underclassmen like me- who can’t fathom leaving the university for the “real world” or whatever the next step may be. I’m sorry for you because one day, I’m going to be you. One day, I’m going to graduate too.
One day, I’m going to graduate, and it won’t matter if I lived in Christensen or Williamson or Gables or Woodsides or on or off campus. All that’s going to matter is the friends and memories I made in those buildings and those rooms during what I’m considering to be the best years of my life. I won’t be able to use a get-out-of-jail-free card with campus security when I’m locked out of my future apartment. I won’t be sharing a bathroom with 27 other girls and hearing the boys in the suite next door hoot and tackle each other over a Patriot’s win. Of course I don’t know where I’m going to end up, but I’m sure it won’t be anything like being back on Willy 1A or in Mills 312.
One day, I’m going to graduate, and I won’t be steps away from Aroma Joe’s coffee dates, late-night Freddy-specials or DHOP for $1.50 a slice. I won’t have the option of all-I-can-eat freshly prepared food just by the swipe of a card. I wont be constantly worried about the “freshman fifteen” or getting a beer gut. I won’t get free burgers and ‘dogs from University Day or the other cookouts we have all over campus when the weather lets us. I won’t make weeknight runs to Wildkitty or PitaPit or stress-eat late-night French toast sticks at Philly. I won’t argue with my friends over which dining hall is the best (Philbrook though), instead I’ll probably start a small fire preparing my own cereal or ramen noodles in my apartment kitchen.
One day, I’m going to graduate, and all of the classes I’ve gotten through will be transferred onto a sheet of paper, or “diploma” that I’ll pay to have framed but realistically keep in the back of a closet somewhere in my future house. It won’t matter that I got a 50% on that anatomy lab or a 100% on the next one. It won’t matter if I graduate a year early or take a victory lap year or semester. It won’t matter that I skipped nights out to go to the library or more often skipped the library to go out and make memories with my friends. Every easy-A or struggled C is boiled down to one sheet of paper.
One day, I’m going to graduate, ending my weekend college adventures. Free access to UNH hockey games every weekend will be a thing of the past. I’ll catch some of them on TV or maybe bring my family to one if I decide to come back to campus. I won’t have Cinco de Mayo or Homecoming weekend as an excuse to start drinking Bud Lights or pounding tequila shots at 7 am. I won’t need to know which fraternity or sport house is “throwing down” this weekend. It won’t matter which party I did or did not get into, which theme I did or did not follow, what costumes I chose for Halloween weekend, or which sombrero or tank top I wore on Cinco de Mayo. I won’t have to debate with my friends over which of the bars downtown is the best as we will all be parting ways and venturing to our own separate bars wherever we end up. I won’t be endlessly requesting “my song!” at parties; instead I’ll hear it on the radio on my way to my future job and get a wave of nostalgia.
So, seniors, I’m truly sorry that you are going through such a big adjustment and monumental turning point in your life right now. I’m sorry everyone, myself included, won’t stop inquiring about your future. I’m sorry there won’t be much DHOP, free Division 1 hockey, dollar pitchers, or easy-A’s in your life anymore. I’m sorry your college story is in it’s final pages. But I’m sorry for myself too. One day, I’m going to be you. Sad to leave, nostalgic, and in disbelief of my own departure from UNH, my home-away-from-home.
I don’t know what I’ll say when I’m asked about my future plans when I’m a senior, all I know is that when I get to my senior year and when I graduate, it won’t be easy. I don’t know where I want to go or what I want to do, but like you once did, I’m going to live up my college experience while I’m still in the middle of it.
For all of us Wildcats, past, present, graduating or graduated, UNH will never just be a school on New Hampshire’s seacoast. Durham will never be just a quaint little New England town. The things we have learned and the memories we have made throughout our time here will be with us forever. As they say, once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat.