Brittany Wilson, Co-Editor-In-Chief, The Whetstone

As a graduating senior, I am constantly looking forward.

Graduation, summer, graduate school, and career are all in front of me—just outside my reach.

My exams, essays and classes are all numbered; I mark each day off my calendar as it passes, like it’s one less hurdle I have to jump on my way to the finish line.

This week, I’ve caught myself thinking retrospectively quite a bit, musing about how far I’ve come in just a few years, and all the things I’ve learned in my time at Wesley College.

Lessons I’m pretty sure we’ve all learned at Wesley College.

  • A pot of coffee a day keeps the sleepiness away.
  • Club involvement (in moderation) doesn’t distract from school work, just makes it bearable.
  • Don’t waste your time on that boy, he’s not the one.
  • No, those freshman-15 aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
  • And no, a New Year’s resolution isn’t going to fix it.
  • Calm down, you’re a freshman—don’t take yourself so seriously.
  • Wake up, you’re a junior—things just got serious.
  • The more you procrastinate, the more white hair you’ll be hiding under that graduation cap.
  • If I can just get through this week…
  • Hey, look kid, you made it. You’re a lot stronger than you thought.

It is so easy to get caught up in all that still has yet to be done, I often forget to look back on all I’ve already accomplished. Life isn’t a checklist, but college is. And if there’s one fault I ever found with Wesley, it’s that after a while I had a hard time differentiating between the two.

College is an aspect of my life—a very important part. But somewhere along the line I allowed it to consume me. All of a sudden, Wesley was the sun, and I was stuck revolving around it for four years.

When it came time to apply for graduate school, I was unprepared. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was so focused on juggling classes, homework, Whetstone, job, boyfriend, internship, friends, and family, that I had forgotten that Wesley College was only temporary, just a stepping stone on my way to bigger things.

My time here has been a learning process; with every year I’ve gotten better, faster, stronger—that’s life.

It’s embarrassing to think too far back—that’s how much my life has changed.

Back then, right now seemed so far away.

But I can appreciate who I was as a freshman, if only to recognize how much better I am as a senior. Someday, I’ll probably look back on my graduation from Wesley as a milestone among many, each a measure of how much I’ve learned and grown.

In a few short months I’ll pack up all of my things and hit the road. I’ll have my degree and a handful of lessons to take with me when I go; and hopefully, somewhere along the way, I left a piece of myself behind.

Someday, probably not long from now, Wesley will remember me as a name on an old, yellowed newspaper in a stack of many.

And I will remember Wesley as just another chapter in my book—all-consuming for a while, but gone with just a turn of the page.