(500) Days of Smith
05/07/2011It’s been a lot more than 500 days of Smith, but I couldn’t resist the allusion to a Joseph Gordon-Levitt film. As the curtains of my Smith show finally draw to a close, I can’t help but feel… sad? Bittersweet? Overjoyed! I should be feeling at least a twinge of sadness with graduation looming near, even if the only reason is because I’ve been a Smithie for the past four years of my life (and a Smith alumnus forever), but let me check my feeling soup – nope, not even a sprinkling of sadness.
It’s not because Smith is such an awful place. I learned a lot about myself at Smith. Of course I will never know if it was brought on by the “Smith environment” or just by the college experience in general. In any case, I am so proud of myself – and that’s something I hardly ever say.
I’ve always considered myself a pretty good student. I do almost all of my homework. I generally care about my grades. I almost never purposely miss class. I’ve also enjoyed school for ~85% of my 16 years of schooling; I’d say that’s a pretty good percentage. I never would have thought I’d be so happy to graduate. Everyone older than me has told me how bittersweet it will feel this last semester. I expected to feel upset, but now that I’m thinking about it all over again – why be upset?
Smith has given me everything I wanted out of college – a great job to look forward to, and a great experience left behind. It’s given me the confidence to do well in my future, and I think that’s pretty awesome.
In other news – I got an email today from my future employer about my company’s 2011 incoming class. I’ll be working with eight recent graduates from Harvard, Yale, UPenn, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, and UVA. Bit intimidating. Outnumbered by the Ivies, yikes! But if there’s anything that Smith’s taught me, it’s that people can only intimidate you if you let them (yay single-sex education!).
SMITH 2011 (:
