As the semester comes to a close, I find myself in a nostalgic, uncharacteristic mood.  Four years ago, I was just trying to survive my first finals week as a stressed-out, overwhelmed freshman. It sounds cliché, but I have no idea how time has moved so quickly, and now I’m concluding my last ever fall semester as an undergraduate. My best friend and I met for lunch today and we couldn’t believe how much we have grown since we met on move-in day at Redding. It feels like a lifetime ago, yet it also feels like yesterday. I have a feeling a lot of clichés will be thrown out in this post, but I can’t help it.

I came into college declared as an English major, not knowing much beyond my passion for reading and writing. Despite some looming doubts and outside voices, I trusted I would figure out my path eventually. Over the past years, I took literature classes that excited me, creative writing classes that bettered me, and English classes that just sounded fun. I became a member of the Writing Fellows Program, a writer (and now editor) for this blog, and an editor of Caesura, the campus literary magazine. I also added history as a second major and worked extremely hard to balance two of the most writing-centric subjects offered at the university. Sometimes it was a lot, but I made it out alive. I successfully increased my passions through my education and will leave UD this upcoming spring as a better student and a better person. Continue reading