Dear freshmen,
As summer break approaches and the sun emerges from the clouds in the shade of Big Rapids gray, I know you’re itching to get out. If you haven’t yet, I invite you to take inventory of your life as a college student.
This year may have introduced you to your deepest passions and closest friends. It may have tested you in ways you never want to experience again. There’s a good chance it did both. Whether you feel at home on this campus or painfully ready to leave it, recognize how far you’ve come.
When I finished my freshman year as a fully-remote COVID graduate in northern Michigan, I was starving for more experiences. I’d felt limited by my location, the pandemic and anxiety around being a beginner. There was so much I didn’t understand yet. I could feel that and all its frustrations.
Something I want to tell underclassmen at the Torch that makes me feel one million years old is that they need to be alive longer. They need to do these things for more time. I’ve read and written more articles than I can count, but I can’t offer anyone advice that will allow them to skip the lesson of firsthand experience. That’s all college is.
If you think anything you’ve done in your first year of college was terrible enough to ruin the next three–or more–ahead of you, you’re wrong. College is a series of wild expectations and honest mistakes that move you forward while you’re still young enough to bounce back. If you think your freshman year was imperfect, I need you to know that nobody ever expects perfection from you at this stage.
Back in 2021, I wish I knew that nobody was mad at me. Without constant classroom validation and in-person interactions, I never knew how my work was received. I wish I knew everything I did was special because I did it my way, and there was no correct way that everyone around me compared me to. I wish I knew all the nice things people said about me when I wasn’t in the room.
The day I heard from my first editorial staff that they genuinely enjoyed my story ideas, I finally felt like there was a place for me at Ferris.
Freshmen, I am only one out of hundreds of people to remind you that your time here will end one day. If you hated anything about how this year went, you have every right to change it. For college and the rest of your life from now on, there is no singular path you must follow.
I find it hard to regret anything from the past four years, but there are a few thoughts I can’t shake. I can’t stop thinking about every person I thought was cool but never got around to becoming friends with. I remember events I didn’t go to and jobs I didn’t apply to. I remember ending every semester believing that I wouldn’t be able to do it all. I was always wrong.
The freedom of summertime is only weeks away. Still, I beg you to see and feel the freedom we share as students. We give this school our money, time, effort and sanity, it is our right to take as many experiences from it in return as we possibly can.
Have fun this summer, this fall and every fall that comes after.
C.E. C.F. / AM