Senior year brings bittersweet feelings for almost everyone. Sure, seniors are at the top of the college food chain, but they are painfully aware of how little time they have left in college and as kids.
The beginning of your senior year at college marks a lot of your “last first things.” Seniors start to realize that it’s no longer just your first tailgate of the season, but rather your last first tailgate, as well as your last first day of school. With so many important last events happening to seniors, it’s hard to stop thinking about how close the end of your college career is and how soon you will have to stop all your childlike shenanigans and become an actual adult.
Senior communications major, Jenna Spelke, is painfully aware of how soon she has to leave College Park and is making sure she makes the most of the time she has left.
“Senior year is bittersweet. We are all excited about the different and new directions we are headed to, but at the same time, it’s our last time to just be young. Everyone has to grow up, but I want to make sure I live my last year as a kid the best way I can,” said Spelke.
Due to the impending departure from college that all seniors, such as Spelke, know is in their future, many have opted to create their own type of bucket list encompassing all of the things they want to make sure they do before they leave College Park one last time.
These senior bucket lists are vast in numbers and have many different items written down, spanning from homely little activities, like getting ice cream at the Dairy, to activities that tend to be a bit more racy, such as skinny dipping in the fountain on the mall one night.
Senior environmental science and policy major, Jackie Levine, made a bucket list of her own after realizing there were still so many things she wanted to do before graduation.
“Now that senior year has arrived, we feel pressured to complete the cliché “things to do before you graduate UMD,’” Levine explained. “Two of our top priorities on the list are swimming in the fountain and climbing to the highest point in Byrd Stadium.”
Taylor Ness, senior journalism major, also came up with different activities she wanted to do in her last year at school with a big group of friends.
“One day it just hit me that this was the last year I would have with all my friends. So I started coming up with ideas of fun things we could do on the weekends now that we’re all 21. So one day all of my friends sat down and wrote a list of 20 things we could do. The list ranges from kayaking in Georgetown to doing a keg stand,” said Ness.
These types of bucket lists go on and on with many different things that seniors all over campus want to make sure they fit in during their last year at Maryland. Whether it’s sneaking into Byrd Stadium or Comcast at night with friends or simply spending the afternoon on the Frat Row field reminiscing, every senior wants to get in as much college life as possible before heading out to the real world in May.