What Will You Be?
If you haven’t figured it out, I already love the future class of 2017. So of course, I couldn’t resist following in the footsteps of fellow bloggers Nathan and Ryan. Reflecting on my Vanderbilt experience and trying to sum it up in a few words is always difficult, but here’s what stands out:
You will be embraced. Both literally and figuratively. You will be embraced by the new community you find yourself thrown into. You will be embraced on tough days when it feels like everything is impossible and you’re not going to be able to finish that take home test due tomorrow. You will be embraced when you’ve finally finished your massive group project and you’ve done well. You will be embraced by new friends you meet each new year of college, and old friends from your first year you always look forward to coming back to. You will be embraced by Vanderbilt and the city of Nashville and a place that once may have seemed foreign or strange will become home.
You will be invigorated. You’ll learn new things about the topics you’ve always loved and you’ll find new topics to love. You’ll come back from class desperately wanting to share your learnings with anyone who crosses your path. You’ll hike waterfalls and jump off cliffs. You’ll leave the city to gaze at the stars with a few of your closest friends and life will become far more tangible than it has ever seemed before, and you’ll be so excited to continue moving through it.
You will be crazy. There will be times when you will doubt your own sanity because it’s 2am and you have a paper due the next day and you’ve volunteered yourself for three different club events the next morning. You will watch your schedule fill up and desperately attempt to find some way to add hours to the day. You will realize that most people around you are on that same level of craziness, and you will all enjoy it together whether it’s through midnight study breaks at Sonic or random dance parties in your hallway.
You will be changed. Both Ryan and Nathan wrote on this, and I can’t agree more. You will think you know yourself and what you are capable of and then you will come to Vanderbilt and all of that will shift and shape before you. You’ll find yourself becoming a different person whether or not you realize it, and that change will be absolutely marvelous.
