Warning: Entirely Sappy, Cheesy, and Nostalgic words ahead.
1. Holy Cow It's Almost Over
If you're like me, you have a blog that records all the foolish things you said freshman year, including but not limited to: "oh no! It's Christmas break! I won't get to see my friends for an entire month!".
Yeah. Past me? One month is no big deal. Four weeks compared with the foreseeable future? You had nothing to complain about.
Denial runs pretty thick senior year; it still hasn't fully hit me that in a couple very short days, I will be saying goodbye to all the amazing friends that I have made here. Luckily with Skype, Google+ hanging-outs, and road trips, I know that we will all keep in contact. Still, I know that I will never live within a 5-min walk of almost all my friends again; that is a peculiarity known only to college.
2. Wait, there's no cafeteria in the real world?
Next year, one of the hardest adjustments (and believe me there is a long list) will be going from only cooking a meal or so a week to cooking every single meal I eat. I've been tremendously spoiled here at Hendrix; our caf has literally won awards for the quality of food. And while, after four years, some of the dishes have grown old, I will sorely miss both having meals already cooked for me and having all the dishes done for me.
3. Dreams don't necessary come true
"You can do everything right and still lose. That's not fair, that's life."
A friend recently posted that on Facebook, and I've been repeating it every since. As everyone knows, hard work doesn't always pay off. I had a rough graduate admissions season-- I worked very hard, crafted what I thought was the perfect resume and cover letter-- and then proceeded to get rejected from almost every school I applied to. Luckily I struck gold on one of my applications-- they contacted me to accept me even before my application was officially complete.
Which, coincidentally, is why I'm proud to say I'm attending the University of Missouri this fall to start the long, arduous process of getting a PhD in Biophysics.
For those playing along at home, you might be wondering whatever happened to my dreams of astrophysics? Around my junior year, I began to realize that what I wanted most out of my career was the ability to help people, to somehow actively strive to make their lives better. I had briefly toyed with the idea of going into medicine, but with my lack of med school pre-requestite classes that was never a serious option. However, I realized that there was a way to marry my love of physics and desire to help others: biophysics.
4. Liberal arts education is not the norm
These past four years have been a wonderful amalgamation of courses in physics, french, English, history, mythology, and more. I didn't come to Hendrix because it was a liberal arts college-- quite honestly I didn't know what that even meant.
What that meant was that while my friends at other universities had schedules weighed down with only math/science courses, I took courses in Classical Mythology, History of Medieval Europe, Minimalist French Literature, Intro to Film Studies, and many others. Heck, I took an entire semester away from math and science and only studied the French language.
That breadth of academia will be gone next year as I enter a very focused physics program. And while I adore physics, I will miss the opportunities I've enjoyed here.
5. When Panera does Bagel Tuesday, hop on that
But for real though. That's an awesome deal. ((Baker's dozen for like seven dollars))
While perhaps the least deep revelation here, I felt the need to mention that recently my breakfasts have been brought to you by the wonderful world of Panera.
6. How easy it is to forgot about your blog
I might have forgotten to post this entire semester.....I wish I could say life got in the way, which it did, but still I always had something that I could've written about. My new resolution is to try and blog this summer (perhaps once a week? I have an overload of opinions, so writing opinion pieces would be easy to do).
And that's it!
As graduation draws closer and closer it's hard not to label everything we do as "the last time". The last Sundae Thursday, the last game of Catan, the last hike, the last coffee shop visit. In a couple days I'll be saying goodbye to this beautiful campus which has become a home and my friends who have become like family.
