After four emails from the College of the Liberal Arts detailing where and what time I needed to pick up my commencement card for graduation (they won’t call your name if you don’t have it), I finally made my way over to the Sparks building.
It was a lovely setup. Set in the middle of the hall were two tables. On one, the commencement cards, bookmarks and several baskets of snacks, candy and Liberal Arts knick-knacks. On the other table, a few whiteboards and Post-its. The whole thing was decorated like a carnival booth to celebrate the graduates.
I told them my name, picked up my card and was about to leave when they asked me to visit the whiteboard table, which was seriously under-decorated compared to the one I was at.
I walked over to meet the friendliest staff member on the planet, who asked me about my post-grad plans. The whiteboards, she said, were for us to declare our plans, and they would post them on the Liberal Arts social media.
“And if you have time,” she said. “Can you fill out a Post-it note with a piece of advice for your freshman self?”
I haven’t been a freshman in a good long while, so I was pretty shocked at having to come up with advice for myself.
I often feel that young people get too much unsolicited advice from people older than them. Everyone feels they have wisdom to share with the younger generation, whether or not they want to hear it.
Columnist Mary Schmich echoed this sentiment in her speech entitled “Wear Sunscreen,” where she writes, “Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”
Advice is only important if you want it, or if you need it and sometimes it benefits the giver more than the recipient.
So I thought to myself, despite the instinctual hesitation I have towards entering advice-mode, what do I know now that I wouldn’t have scoffed at hearing as a bright-eyed, quiet 17-year-old stepping onto campus for the first time?
Throughout the day, I ran this question over and over in my head. I managed to come up with a couple of things.
Join a lot of clubs right away, but don’t feel obligated to continue with them if it’s not something you like. Take on leadership roles in the clubs that better your academic or social life and leave the rest behind.
You only have so much energy; use it wisely and discard what doesn’t serve you.
Some people only look out for themselves. Some only look out for others. Learning which is which can save you a lot of drama.
Drink more water.
Always check rate my professor before signing up for a class.
Long-term friends share the same interests and values as you. People who are not meant to be in your life will find their way out. Take care of friendships where you are valued and equal; they are few and far between.
Once you take the first exam of a class, you will know how to study for the rest.
Complimenting people on little things means more to them than you would think.
Don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone is on a different path, has different strengths and lives in a different environment. There are too many people in the world to try to create a ranking.
Be kind to people even when it’s hard. Whether or not it matters to them, it will make you a happier person. Be kind to yourself above all.
Enjoy the little things. Remember that enjoyment when things get hard.
I have learned plenty of fragments of advice throughout my four years at college, but very little of it matters to the younger version of myself, who needs to figure it out by herself. More importantly, it matters to me now. To know that I have learned something, to know that I have changed in so many small ways to become the person about to walk across the stage and flip the tassel on my cap is important enough.
So I have dusted off the past, painted it a pretty color and packaged it up as new advice for a person I no longer am. Maybe it will help someone, or maybe I am offering it up as nostalgia while I look back on my time as a college student who knew so little about life.
Either way, I wrote the note. I scribbled my piece of advice on a teal post-it note and tacked it onto the wall, leaving a mark through a scrap of paper and a flick of the pen to show that I was there.