I’m starting to write this on Monday, in hopes that the end product that pops up on your computer screens Thursday afternoon or late morning will somehow be an incredibly thoughtful and cohesive review of my first semester of college. The probability of that occurring is probably not very high, given how muddled with finals and packing and going and leaving my brain is at the present moment- and will most likely remain all week- but here’s hoping.
I started out my first semester with way too many expectations. As I have learned from many others reflecting on their experiences this semester, this was probably not the way to go about things. I knew that things were going to be hard and I knew that there were going to be some social losses as I worked to keep myself safe, but I had this great big idea that somehow the magic of human connection would manage to overcome everything stacked against us and I would become lifelong friends with every single person on campus this fall and learn everything there is to be known about being an adult and I would leave campus in December counting the days until I got to come back for spring.
As you might have been able to guess, that wildly unrealistic dream plan is not how things went down, but I think I’m actually very okay with that. Would I have liked to have made a lot more friends and a couple more memories? Of course, but I think that any semester I would come away thinking that.
I think that the most important thing about this semester is that even though I wasn’t always able to enjoy everything, I was always able to learn from it. I’ll be honest, this semester has really been a struggle, but you know what? I survived! And I don’t mean to be an unconditional optimist and doom myself to future failure, but I really think things are going to go up from here. At the very least, I will never have to go through having my first semester of college in the middle of a pandemic ever again, and that is something I am very grateful for.
This semester, I learned so much about myself. I learned that I am not an English major, but that English majors do tend to make very good friends. I rediscovered my desire to change the world, and I think I might have found a couple ways to do that. I learned that I am much better at improvising things than I thought I was, and that there is nothing I can’t make work. I learned that, given time, there’s nothing I can’t learn, if my third try at calculus is any indication. I learned that I’m a people person, that I want to devote my life to helping and learning about everyone around me. I learned that even right outside of Big, Bad Boston, Midwesterners will find a way to stick together- shoutout to Sophia on Pom 4th!- and that New Englanders really aren’t as bad as I thought they would be. I relearned how to knit for the millionth time, and I’m thinking about learning how to crochet sometime soon. I learned that I’m nowhere near as good at logic puzzles as I thought I was, but I still love them just as much. I learned how to play the carillon, and before that I learned what a carillon was! I learned that at my best, I’m an early riser, but when I get really burnt out I never want to leave my bed. I learned that, unfortunately, some dining hall foods really are too good to be true, but when they serve mac and cheese it is a blessing. I learned that Wellesley College is not just one Wellesley, but an endless number of Wellesleys to be experienced differently based on the time, the weather, the scent of the air, the angle of the sun, the person you are, and the people you are with, and that my favorites are Wellesley College at Tupelo Point at ten pm with a secret circle of teenagers reading each other poetry, Wellesley College in the Pomeroy Hall Morning Room on an afternoon without classes and everyone who enters has something funny to tell you, Wellesley College at the top of Galen Stone Tower when the sun is setting and the bells are ringing, and every version of Wellesley College in the snow. I learned that Wellesley College and the people who choose to be here are nothing like I expected them to be, and that that might be a very good thing indeed. I learned that there will probably never pass a day in my time here at Wellesley where I don’t learn something, and I am very excited to meet the person I will be when I leave this campus for the last time as a student, and all of the people who come in between the two of us.
Tonight is my last night on campus, and I won’t lie and say that that’s an occasion I’ve been dreading. The past few weeks, going home for Christmas and getting to see my family and my cats and Iowa again have been at the front of my mind every hour of everyday, and the closer it gets the more excited I am. Still, I can’t say that I won’t miss Wellesley; walking to Tower for breakfast every morning with Anastasija, singing songs from our favorite Disney Channel shows with my block on our way back from dinner at Bates, seeing all of the Pommies as they pass me in the Morning Room on their way back from class- there have been so many good parts of my first semester that I’ll be sad to see end for now, but thankfully they aren’t over forever. I’ll be right back up here in two months, singing silly songs and trudging through the snow all over again.
I’m not sure how well this serves as a reflection; I think it’s a little bit hard because I really haven’t looked at it as being the end of anything, yet. Maybe that will change in a couple weeks, and I’ll post a new and improved, fully reflected reflection. For now, what I have to say is: this semester may not have always been great, but when I think about it a year from now I think I’ll smile, and I think that that’s really what matters in the end.
Sending you joy,
A
P.S. I hope you enjoy today’s header image! New England was hit by a snowstorm last night, and I made Anastasija pose for me on our way out of Pom for breakfast this morning.