Finding closure amidst a pandemic

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re stressed and upset that your freshman year is not going as planned, despite constant reassurances from your high school friends that you will find your niche. You spend your Saturdays looking up colleges closer to home, in Pennsylvania, envisioning how when you arrive, you’ll just know that’s where you’re meant to be. You’re lonely and calling your mom constantly because you don’t feel at home at Wofford.

But you will. It might not be your ideal decision to stay, but it will be your decision to make it home. Because once you’ve finished throwing yourself a pity party, you’ll realize all of the great people and traits that make Wofford your home—the same parts that make graduating, let alone half a semester early due to a pandemic, so difficult.

You’ll throw yourself into The Old Gold & Black, meeting people through interviews and attending events on campus. You’ll grow a family in your sorority and find the girls you’ll want to keep around forever. You’ll get dressed up for your formals and school events, trusting only certain people to curl your hair properly. You’ll spend weekends at the Greek Village or downtown celebrating another week finished.

But those aren’t the things that make your college experience so worthwhile. Those things include the late Monday nights in your friends’ apartment watching “The Bachelor”. They’re the times you get to cheer your friends on when they’re giving presentations or performances. The spontaneous trips to Red Bowl or Willy Taco and the late-night walks back to your dorm from Milliken are what make college a time to remember.

There will be heartbreak and loss, but your friends will be there for you if you need them and you’ll know that your professors will help you through this time, as best they can. You’ll spend a semester studying abroad in Israel, which may be difficult, but will ultimately be important to your personal and academic growth. You’ll even visit your Wofford friends in Europe and spend weeks looking forward to seeing their familiar faces.

Wofford is in no way perfect, despite how hard some students may try to convince you that it is. No school is perfect for every freshman that walks onto its campus, but as a senior, you will realize that the dread you felt about the prospect of staying for another three years will be nothing compared to the dread you will feel as graduation approaches. And neithr of these will compare to the disappointment you’ll feel when you don’t get to finish your last semester. You might even consider taking a fifth year for about ten seconds, before realizing you need to practice acceptance and move on.

But the truth is that every experience is what you make it. Whether academically or socially, Wofford can be what you want it to be with the right amount of effort and understanding. It’s easy to think you’re the only one who feels a certain way, but that is rarely the case.

You can’t forget that college is not the only experience that matters. No matter how you feel at the end of your senior year, mourning those last moments and goodbyes, life will go on. You will find new experiences and people waiting on the other side of graduation, but don’t neglect the moments you spend in college by wishing them away.

Sincerely, 

A mourning senior