I’m from a town of about 1,500 people, and when I came to college, I knew one person on Mizzou’s campus. I graduated from high school with 29 kids in my class, and no, it wasn’t a private school. I grew up rooting for the other team in the Braggin’ Rights games, and I had only been to Columbia once in my life before I came to Mizzou. I had no idea what to expect from the J-School, and I had only ever been to a few football games in my entire life.
But I fell in love with Mizzou. And I fell hard.
Fast forward four years, and I’m crying while sitting in my apartment writing this.
For some reason I keep telling people to register for Tiger Walk, not Tiger Prowl and Senior Sendoff, as if that’s what’s about to take place in a few days. Sadly, this isn’t the start of my college career, and I don’t get to do Tiger Walk all over again.
On one hand, I’d love to restart college just so I can go back and do everything I missed. But on the other, I know I wouldn’t do anything differently.
I’d probably know the same people. I’d join the same organizations. I wouldn’t change my major. I’d go to Harold’s Doughnuts the same amount, if not more.
However, if I had a do-over, I’d tell freshman Cady to soak it all in every year. Don’t wait until senior year to start embracing all that Mizzou and Columbia has to offer. Four years is not nearly enough to see and do it all, but that’s not the point of college or life in general. College hasn’t been perfect, but it is what you make it.
Take time every single day to realize how cool it is that you’re here at Mizzou. You’ve got an incredible resource at your fingertips. Use it. You’ll never get these years back, no matter how hard you try. Each day is a privilege and should be treated as such.
Which brings me to my friend group’s senior year bucket list, which is really a second semester bucket list. It’s hands down the one thing I wish I would have done every single semester of college.
This semester alone, there were over 20 things on our list. After all, we’re journalism majors, so we’re overambitious and always on the move.
We brought pizza to a AASB meeting, went to Central Dairy and celebrated each friend’s post graduation plans at a restaurant of their choice, just to name a few things on the list.
We’ve really tried to take it all in the last semester. But I wish we would have done this every year. We knew eventually we’d leave, but we didn’t realize how fast it would happen.
And there’s a solid chance the list will not get finished, but it’s ok. We’ll just have to come back to complete it when we’re officially alums.
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