When I walked up to check-in underneath the wind tunnel of the Lyons Hall arch, I was greeted by people I had never seen before, immediately intimidating my introverted personality that I’ve since shirked entirely. When I ventured up to my shoebox sized first year dorm room, I was more than ready to get to know my roommates and create memories that any moment of “Friends” could not top. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sophomore that knocked on my door and introduced herself as the former resident of my teeny-tiny room.
What I was even more unprepared for was this sophomore quickly becoming my best friend, closer to a sister than I could have imagined. At the time, I had no worries in the world for what my college life would be; after all, we were so far from the real world. With our home cemented in the decrepit, deeply flammable and asbestos ridden walls of our lovely dorm, nothing could stop college from being the best thing ever.
With graduation a few short weeks away, a part of me resents my former zeal for socialization: how idiotic of me it was to befriend someone in the class of 2024. In two weeks time, I’ll be the senior, and she’ll be off living life at her big, adult job. I’ll be … in South Bend. Fortunately, I know I’m not the only junior deeply troubled by their amazing accomplishment of graduating, prematurely mourning the loss of late-night dorm conversations that definitely wake your neighbors or our weekly pilgrimages to CJ’s and Olf's. That’s why I’ve prepared a list of all the reasons you should be happy your friends are leaving and all there is to anticipate in the year to come.
1. You become the senior.
With the swish of a tassel, us juniors will be the top dogs under the golden dome. New officer positions in your favorite clubs have opened up (like me receiving the coveted role of Graphics Editor for The Observer from my best friend Christina), and now you get to make your ideal senior year your reality! Lean into spring senioritis, go out with friends and get ready to don the cap and gown in a year’s time. It’ll be here before you know it. All the fun dances, class events and the true “college experience” will culminate in this final year — you watched your class of 2024 friends do it, so embrace the fact that it’s your turn!
2. Your friends will be rich (not really, but it’s nice to dream).
With job prospects come salaries! While your friends might not be shacking up in the great city of South Bend (or they might be, which is even better!), I can guarantee that if they’re anything like my ambitious friends across all the colleges, they’ll be making a pretty penny more than they were with their on-campus jobs at Au Bon Pain or RecSports. Maybe they will feel indebted to your amazing friendship and spoil you with the fruits of their labor. Anticipate their charity by making an Amazon wishlist or something — it never hurts to be prepared.
3. You get to reminisce on what beautiful things came from your time with them.
The difficulty of college lives in its temporality. We all come in knowing that in a few years, it will all be over. Whether or not we are fans of carrying on, the reality of the situation is unavoidable. The taste may be bittersweet, but you can look back at all the good that came from knowing your older friends and look forward to all the good that is to come. I know I’ll get to watch “Dance Moms,” fail miserably at O’Rourke’s Trivia and sing karaoke with Christina and our beloved friends again. It’s not a matter of if, but when. For now I’ll hold onto all the times we did just that — it will surely get me through senior year.
Sometimes it can be far too easy to lean into the melancholy, to cry at times that are happy because they are the last, to curse yourself for never saying something to that cute senior you’ll likely never hang out with again. In an effort to avoid the cliche, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened,” I want to emphasize that you should be sad. But you should be proud. They did it, and so can you.
You can contact Marissa at mpanethi@nd.edu.
