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The beginning of the end: My first week of senior year

Alison Marc-Aurele
Connector Staff

As I walked through campus on the first day of my senior year, I caught myself thinking back to my first day as a senior in high school. I remember walking into the building like I was royalty and feeling absolutely invincible. In college, however, there is no ‘king of the world’ feeling that comes with being a senior. Instead I have found myself met with a mixture of endless anxiety, exhaustion and impatience. Between rushing from one class to another and going to meeting after meeting, it’s amazing that I find time to eat let alone think about my future. But that’s not to say that this year hasn’t already been the best year of my college experience thus far. While just the phrase ‘senior year’ is usually met with a feeling of impending doom, I have found myself enjoying more of what school has to offer.

Before this year I tended to stay within the foundation I had set myself in towards the beginning of school; I hung out with the same friends, worked in the same place and did the same activities. This year I decided to change that up. I made the conscious decision to put myself out there and from this I have already learned so much more about myself and what I can accomplish. In just the first two weeks I have attended more diverse club meetings, sought out new experiences and explored more of what Lowell has to offer.

One of the more interesting aspects of this year is my living situation. While senior year is usually when students find apartments of their own instead of returning to the dorms, this year I have found myself sharing a dorm floor with almost all freshmen. At first I was absolutely terrified at the thought of being surrounded by 18 year olds who are on their own for the first time, but living here has reminded me of how much fun college can be. Although it’s easy to get wrapped up in all of the assignments and projects, I am never going to get this genuine of a college experience again. After graduation my friends will no longer live right down the street and I won’t have a dining hall to eat at every night. Don’t get me wrong, living with freshmen still makes me want to rip my hair out from time to time, but it has also reminded me to enjoy my experience and appreciate what is right in front of me.

There are a lot of expectations that come with being a senior in college. Every time I meet someone new and they find out I’m graduating in May, their go-to question seems to be “What are you doing after graduation?” Anyone who is graduating soon knows how impossible this question is to answer; am I supposed to lie and say I have some offers on the table? Or maybe that I’m taking a year off to ‘find myself.’ Either sounds better than the truth: I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I have been panicking about my post-grad life since I enrolled in this school and it has taken me until this year to realize that it’s okay to not know. Whether I use my business degree to become a CEO or simply decide to forget about it completely and become a professional mermaid (it’s actually a thing), there’s something comforting about not knowing what life will be like after graduation. As a wise woman once said, “Life’s what you make it, so let’s make it rock.”