As my time in college barrels toward the finish line, I need to admit to one simple truth: college has not been the best four years of my life.
Before you jump to conclusions, let me explain. College has given me wonderful memories as well as awful ones. For every moment that made me want to leave, there was another that made me sure I had to stay and see it through.
Although college has not been the best four years of my life, there is another superlative that these past four years have won by a landslide: most impactful. When I think of my 18-year-old self, with her awful side part and lack of self-confidence, I can see just how far I have come.
I arrived at Saint Louis University fully convinced that I would find lifelong friends during welcome week and that I would never change my major. I was so determined to be “cooler” than I was in high school, whatever that meant.
Needless to say, my plans hit snags very quickly. From contracting salmonella from Grand Dining Hall chicken to having an anxiety attack in my chemistry lab to realizing that the people on my floor were not quite my lifelong friends, my first few months of freshman year were nothing like I had hoped.
But looking back, they were exactly what I needed. I came back to SLU for a second semester with a resolve to build a real life for myself here. Gone was my desire to be “cool” — all that I wanted was to be happy. So I dropped my biochemistry major and switched to math with a teaching emphasis. I joined an a cappella group where I was able to do something I enjoyed multiple times a week while spending time with people who would love me unconditionally. My life did not change overnight, but by the end of my freshman year, I knew that I had found my place.
Sophomore year brought me some of my best and worst college memories, as well as an abundance of lessons. I started the year enamored with my friends and with my life, and I can think of many golden moments laughing by firelight or getting nightly dinners with my friends at Qdoba. I took on my first leadership roles in my sorority and a cappella group, and I slowly but surely began to regain my self-confidence. I was taking classes that challenged me but that I truly enjoyed, and I had people to spend time with on weekend nights — in some ways, it was everything freshman year me could have asked for.
But I also spent the year trying to have as many friends as physically possible, going so far as to hang out with four different groups of people in one night because I simply could not say “no.” I fell victim to the desire to be “cool” yet again, staying out until 3 or 4 a.m. regularly because I thought it would make me seem more fun. Spoiler alert: it did not — all it gave me was a messed-up sleep schedule and a whole lot of anxiety, but I did not understand that then.
By the end of the year, several aspects of my life had started to slip into disarray, and I did everything I thought was right to fix them. I know now that I made mistakes and spread myself too thin. At the same time, though, these situations taught me a lesson that I’ll always carry with me: you must give yourself grace for doing the best you can.
If sophomore year broke my heart, then junior year started the process of mending it. I lost some friends but grew closer than ever to the ones I kept. I moved into an apartment with huge windows, a faulty washer and dryer and a roommate I adored. And I spent many nights on the second floor of the library with a table full of friends, laughing too loudly instead of studying.
Junior year taught me that I did not need the world’s largest social circle or the most jam-packed weekend plans in order to be happy. I had heart-to-hearts in Pickleman’s with my friends and went on runs with my roommate by the Olive Compton ponds. And through all of it, I felt more peaceful than I had in years. I also learned from my mistakes the previous year, and when I was faced with problems, I knew better than to act impulsively or think the world was ending. I made some different mistakes, of course, but in time, I would learn from those, too.
Inevitably, this brings me to senior year. I spent this year as the president of my a cappella group, and I feel lucky to have gained so much insight into leadership and love. It has been the biggest joy of my life to give back to a group that has given me so much, as well as to be there for younger members the same way that older members were there for me. The experience of leading something that I care for so deeply has altered my senior year experience and my life irrevocably for the better.
When I was not busy with a cappella, my senior year was full of PowerPoint nights, Six Flags Fright Fest trips and repeated attempts by my roommates and me to fix the LED lights hanging in our apartment. My friends and I went to a Halloween party dressed as the Barden Bellas and sang karaoke all night. My roommate set up her Wii on our TV, and I cried laughing as I watched her play Wii Wipeout. Most memorably, I opened the window of my second-floor apartment hundreds of times, dropping my key down to smiling friends waiting below.
Senior year has been a period of joy but also sadness, knowing the end is near. The bittersweet sentimentality threatens to overwhelm me as I imagine taking the pictures off the walls in my apartment or singing with my a cappella group for the very last time. But ultimately, there is another feeling, too. I cannot put it better than Taylor Swift, who once sang, “you know in your soul when it’s time to go.” Though it pains me to admit it, I could not agree more.
Forgive me for the dramatics, but I swear that I am standing on the brink of a brand-new stage of life. And thanks to the lessons I have learned these past four years, I feel ready to face it. I am grateful for the evenings spent eating alone in the dining hall freshman year and the nights spent sobbing in my dorm room sophomore year.
I am grateful for every person who walked into my life, both the ones who hurt me and the ones who healed me — I will carry them all in my heart forever. Most of all, I am grateful for every version of myself that I have been at SLU. I am only here today because every version had the strength to keep going and to believe that good things were just around the corner.
So, thank you, college. You were not the best four years of my life, but you have impacted me in a way I never could have expected — and for that, I would not change a thing. On to the next! If I have learned anything these past four years, it’s that the best is always yet to come.