It’s that time of year again. It is a time to celebrate the passing from one important life stage to the next. It is a time to recognize academic achievement, as we applaud our classmates walking on stage to receive their diplomas. It is a time to remember the long nights in the library, the crazy weekends of partying, and the friendships you have created in the last four years that will last a life time. As cliché as it sounds, college really is the best four years of your life; and now it is ending. As March winds down and April quickly approaches, May will soon be on its way. Graduation is almost upon us.
Graduation is the time to show your family that you are somewhat mature and able to function in the real world. For many of us, it was an easy road and we are ready to begin the next steps in our lives. For others, your family will be the loudest section in the back of the auditorium because they never thought they would see this day coming. Some of us were destined for greatness at a young age and the rest of us had to work extremely hard to get here. Attending an institution such as Franklin and Marshall is quite the achievement and every student should pride themselves on their success here.
Graduation is also a time to reminisce on the growth you have experienced in the last four years. This school has molded us into the adults we have become. I can’t say I know a single person who has stayed the same since freshman year orientation. Of course, many of us are still extremely immature and will continue to be so for many years, but nothing compares to the stupidity many of us exemplified our freshman year. Looking back on my freshman year self, my senior year self would never be my friend. She would actually hate me. I was WILD. I use the term wild loosely because it is not nice to call yourself a stupid, immature, selfish, blackout drunk. All the time.
I’m sure a large majority of my freshman class was not going out five days a week and sleeping through their classes (good for you, I admire your type), but I was and so were all my friends. We became friends during freshman orientation and thought we would be friends FOREVA! After spending every waking moment together first semester, we all began branching our second semester and by Christmas break of our sophomore year we were all a part of different cliques; jocks, fraternities and sororities, stoners, etc. We always remained friendly; constantly hugging when we saw one another out at a party, saying hello in the hallways, but nothing rivaled the long, drunken nights of our freshman year. It’s weird to see how friendships evolve throughout college. You think you’ll be friends forever and the next thing you know, you hate one another. Living with your best friends can either be the best thing in the world or literally the worst thing of all time. Not all friendships in college are doomed for destruction. I have many friends that I made freshman year and have maintained these friendships to this day and probably will forever. My freshman year roommate is still one of my best friends, and although we are no longer showing up to 6 am practices still hammered from the night before, we remember those days like it was yesterday and laugh about how irresponsible we were.
Looking back on the last four years of college is a fun activity. As I said before, I was such an idiot in my early days of college. Did I make mistakes? Of course. Do I regret a ton of stuff I did? Who doesn’t? I’m not going to hide from it because those mistakes taught me a ton of lessons in the process. The important thing is that I grew so much from this. I stopped drinking copious amounts of alcohol every weekend and really hit the books hard. I stopped skipping classes just because I didn’t feel like going and actually began to enjoy the academic aspects of college. I broke up with my high school boyfriend at least a million times throughout the last four years, but now that we are graduating, growing up and really appreciate one another; I know he is the man I want to marry. Although it took me the last four years to figure it out, he was well worth the wait. Some girls need to kiss a hundred frogs in college to find their prince but once you do find him; it is one of the most incredible feelings. I’m not saying that you’ll find your future husband at the keg of a fraternity party but I know a lot of girls who have and it makes for quite the story. It is rare that you end up with the first boy you were with in college… or the second… or the third. It may take a few and you may not meet him in college but that does not mean that you won’t meet him shortly after, in the real world. As someone who worked in DC this summer and met a ton of “professional” men, I will say that there is nothing sexier than a working man in a suit, preferably gray… with a canary yellow tie… and shiny shoes. Oh baby.
We spend four years in college trying to figure out exactly who we are. In the last four years, we joined clubs, sports teams and sororities. We tried out for plays and other school productions. We were elected to boards and positions of leaderships. We switched majors multiple times. None of us really knew what we wanted to do with our lives when we first attended freshman orientation and will probably graduate with no idea. The point is, the last four years of our lives may have been incredibly confusing and frustrating, but they were also some of the most fun we have ever had. Sitting at graduation and watching our peers walk across that stage will be bittersweet. You’ll see those friends from freshman year that you lost touch with, those girls you lived with and ended up hating after two months, and that guy who broke up with you for one of your friends. It will be strange BUT you will also see your friends from freshman year that you did remain friends with, as well as the other multiple friends you made throughout the years when you branched out from your group. You will see that boy that makes your heart flutter and who you have plans to grow old with. You’ll see the people you spent hours and hours in class with, learning new things and complaining about the unfair grades on your midterms. You’ll see your teammates, who you have suffered great losses and great wins with and still loved you on and off the field. You will see this and more as we walk across the stage together. It will be a bittersweet feeling, leaving this place we just spent the last four years of our lives, but it will also be exciting. As I said before, none of my friends are the same as we were freshman year. We have grown so much in the past four years together and now we are entering the next stages of our lives together.