Now entering my junior year at Belmont, it is taking me a minute to catch up with everything that has changed in the course of life over the last three years. I promise I will not spend this whole note telling you how time flies by in college, so I will just say it once. TIME FLIES BY, HOMIES. You hear the aggressiveness in my voice? I’m only HALF way done, and I am already freaking out about it. Okay. Good. I said it, and now we can talk about what is truly important. In your limited time you will have at this university, you will be greeted by a body of students who come from every state in this country. Some may have traveled across oceans to lay down a deposit and entrust Belmont with their dreams. And so have you. You see the connection? These random humans have coincidentally intersected their lives with yours, and I am not in anyway implying that you will be best friends with them. You will not even meet the majority of them, although at least half will somehow find you on the class page and friend you on Facebook. But that’s okay. Go with it. What I am implying is that you can choose to glide through the next four years, or you can choose to be present. Remember why you wanted to be here in the first place. It’s a new environment, a new culture, and maybe a new city. You already conquered the hardest part about college, which is blindly living in faith and allowing yourself to present in something new.
I had the privilege to listen to Mayor Megan Barry greet your class of 2021 during Welcome Week recently, and what she closed with her speech really stuck with me. She said, “Don’t be small. Be big.” It seems simple, and it rolls off the tongue easily. So say it. And live it. Because the changes in your life that are in store for the next four years and beyond are not always going to be a smooth transition. Some challenges are going to make you miss home and want to turn right back around. But be big. The people who choose to come to Belmont are not small in the slightest way. We make up a body of innovative, driven, and passionate learners. Learners!! Remember, that is what we all are. We are just here to learn, soak up every ounce of knowledge we can, and be present.
PS: Don’t always judge the people who are always posting on your Belmont class page. Sometimes people are selling discounted concert tickets, and we are all broke college kids trying to live the dream. Just go with it.
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