MK-237, CM-301, PS-295. One day, these will be groups of random letters and numbers that have no significance to me. I won’t remember who Edward R. Murrow is, or what makes up a SWOT analysis. “The medium is the message” will have no significance to me, and I won’t have a clue on what a Stukent Simternship looks like (thankfully). When I look back on my time in college, the classes have only played a minor part in shaping who I am today in comparison to who I was four years ago. Although I won’t remember what Laudato Si’ talks about, I’ll remember the bench in front of the chapel that I called my parents on, the second night I got here crying saying I wanted to transfer home and that SHU wasn’t for me (classes hadn’t even started yet).
I’ll think about how scared I was to change my major from elementary education to communications, when I didn’t even know what “communications” meant. Now, I can’t think of a more perfect major for me. Stepping onto the streets of Midtown by myself for the first time to walk into a building I didn’t think I belonged in for an internship felt a lot less scary than being dropped off in Seton Hall room 507 with a girl I met on Instagram.
The rope swing in the backyard, the stream next to our house that’s harbored “swimming lippies”, and the back deck that’s broken underneath people’s feet will come to mind when I think of college. Uncle Sal, prosciutto bread, and my landlord calling my roommates and I his nieces are things that will pop up in my head on random days. My roommates and I meeting in the “L room” at 8 p.m. on Tuesdays for DWTS, and any time we were all around on Wednesdays for TSITP and TML are truly some of my most cherished memories.
Of course, I’ll think about the Riverwalk Thursdays and Elicit Fridays, and all the other late nights that have happened in between. I’ll hear songs one day that will put my back to getting ready in Bowman Hall, and could smell the Dossier Aquatic Vanilla in the air.
Through my time here, I’ve learned that it’s okay to enjoy things you didn’t think you would, and that those places can take you far. If you told me senior year of high school I would be giving campus tours and writing for the school newspaper, I definitely would have thought you had the wrong person. Through my experiences, I’ve gotten better with talking to people I don’t know, developed a stronger work ethic, and have grown to understand what it feels like to be motivated. The confidence I have grown in myself and my capabilities is all credited to how my time throughout college has shaped me.
As I sit here writing this, I look at my gown, dress, and cords hung up in the corner of my room wondering where all of the time went. It feels like no time has passed since being in orientation group 15, meeting Molly, Liv and Charlotte. Just yesterday I was introducing myself to Maddy and Zoë, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without these friends..
These past 4 years have been my most transformative ones yet, and leaving it all behind feels surreal. The community I’ve surrounded myself with at Sacred Heart has made me a better person, and I couldn’t be happier with the memories I am leaving with. I might not remember how to write an SMP, but I could write a novel on how much love and appreciation I hold for my time at Sacred Heart University.
