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You are here: Home / Opinion / Columns / Generic Senior Goodbye Column

Generic Senior Goodbye Column

April 21, 2017 by Mercedez Hernandez

23 days. That’s how many days I have left as a college student.

You might be thinking, “oh great, I bet this is another one of those sappy goodbye columns that all graduating Optimist members write,” and you, my friend are correct and should prepare yourself because this is going to be the sappiest letter you’ve ever read.

I’ll be honest, when I first came to ACU I wanted to transfer out after my first semester. I had a difficult time adjusting to college life, especially so to the quirks of our beloved campus. (Chapel? Every day? Really?) Come the start of the spring semester, I was looking forward to March, not because of spring break, but because that’s when I would find out whether I had been accepted to the University of Texas at Austin and would be 5 long hours away from the A-B-I in the fall time.

Well, March came and I got my admission letter. It was the small one. That meant I was stuck in Abilene, stuck at ACU and stuck in what I thought would be the worst 4 years of my life. Dramatic I know, but cut me some slack I was only 18.

The spring passed by quickly and so did the summer, leading me to my sophomore year which was just as mundane  as my freshman year; that is, until I met with my advisor one fine spring day.

While discussing  my schedule for the next semester, I found out that in order to graduate, I had to earn credit by working for two semesters in one of the student-media organizations in my department, with one of those semesters having to be spent at The Optimist.

I applied to the paper and was made the Arts and Features Editor with only having minimal writing and design experience. (I was terribly under qualified, but thank you so much for hiring me, Brittany Jackson.)

I started my job, and over the course of my junior year I started to think that maybe this was how college was supposed to be. I was having fun and I finally felt happy. Tired, because balancing schoolwork and a job is never easy, but happy nevertheless.

Finding my niche at the paper gave me the confidence to branch out and become more involved in my department, leading me to make some amazing friendships that I hope to have for a very long time, so thank you to The Optimist for being the starting point for the best last year I could have hoped to have.

It took me two years to start calling ACU my home, and now as the days climb from April 23 to May 13, I grow more excited to enter the “real” world, but also sad at the thought of leaving the one I’d only just come to love.
This was sappy, cliche and barely a column, but deal with it because I’m only graduating once. Boy, I really hope I pass my finals or else this column will be really embarrassing to read come May 14.

Filed Under: Columns, Opinion

Other Opinion:

  • SGA is bolstering a better campus environment for current, future students

  • Reflecting on the year that changed the world

  • Unpaid internships put low-income students at a disadvantage

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About Mercedez Hernandez

You are here: Home / Opinion / Columns / Generic Senior Goodbye Column

Other Opinion:

  • SGA is bolstering a better campus environment for current, future students

  • Reflecting on the year that changed the world

  • Unpaid internships put low-income students at a disadvantage

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acuoptimistThe Optimist@acuoptimist·
5 Mar

The university is reporting its lowest number of active COVID-19 cases in the 2020-21 academic year with just one active case Friday. Quarantines also fell to the lowest of the spring semester with 19.

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acuoptimistThe Optimist@acuoptimist·
5 Mar

"You might be surprised at what you discover about yourself when you reflect on how “the year that changed the world” changed you." Read more from Chief Photographer Riley Fisher below:
https://acuoptimist.com/2021/03/reflecting-on-the-year-that-changed-the-world/

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3 days ago

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The university is reporting its lowest number of active COVID-19 cases in the 2020-21 academic year with just one active case Friday. Quarantines also fell to the lowest of the spring semester with 19. ...

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3 days ago

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"You might be surprised at what you discover about yourself when you reflect on how “the year that changed the world” changed you." Read more from Chief Photographer Riley Fisher below: ...

Reflecting on the year that changed the world - Optimist

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Thinking about everything that has changed in the last year can be scary and overwhelming. The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in a lot of areas, affecting things as local as the closing of many small businesses and as large as the operations of the entire entertainment industry. I’ve caught m...
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