To my last semester at Emerson College,
Above all else, I hope I give you the time, effort, and love you deserve. I know you will be my hardest semester yet (even more challenging than my 20 units last fall), but I also know you could be the most rewarding and mind-broadening semester of my life thus far. I hope I put in the work to allow the magic to happen.
Along with that, I want to savor this time, take this time to reflect on myself, my future, my friends, and my past. Emerson College, and Boston as a whole, has been my home for the past year and a half since I transferred in from my community college. And though it hasn’t been without its challenges, and sometimes I’ve wished I could have had more time, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I am uniquely who I am today because of what has happened here: a near-perfect roommate pairing; the development of an adult “self” in my apartment which I love; the creation of a major, a community, and a not-for-profit; the discovery of a mentor and a backbone; the expansion of my mind in terms of how I understand the world around me and the world within me—the expansion of what I ever thought I could hope to achieve. Emerson has given me all of this, and I’m thankful for the privilege of this opportunity that I know so many can only dream of.
My last semester here will be difficult. There are plenty of places where I’m almost planning for things to potentially go poorly, but of course I can’t foresee everything. There are also handfuls of happiness I hope to hold in my heart. But of course, I can’t foresee all of that either. All I can do is prepare to the best of my ability and remain flexible for change. I can work towards my new semester’s resolutions—don’t scare myself into giving up in my classes, cook for myself instead of eating out, exercise more because it feels good, be more willing to try new things—and I can also know that I won’t be perfect. There are 16 weeks until graduation, and that’s all I can do. That’s all any of us can do, as cliche as it is.
So, my dear final semester, I have high expectations, I’ve written them out in a not-so-clear, not-so-cohesive, but also not-un-confident manner. All we can do now is do the work. I’ll do it if you do.
Always, thankful and awed,
Ava