After spending four years at my safety school and duly not expecting much, I must say I will be driving back home next week with a sore heart. Binghamton University surely has its woes, but my experience here has helped me grow tenfold.
During my collegiate years at BU I have learned to drop the minimalist mode of thought that was so prevalent for me in high school. I have come to appreciate the merits of hard work, the power of knowledge and the good company of simple relations. I have realized my strengths and my weaknesses and found what I can excel at, and what really fills me with pure joy. Furthermore, living with an assortment of apartment-mates has taught me to deal with all sorts of personality types, and to find where mine fits in the most.
In short, my time at Binghamton has equipped me with the necessary tools for future success.
I thank BU for allowing me to compete as a swimmer on the D-1 level, for helping me realize the unique thrill of competition within the sport of swimming and for giving me the opportunity to accomplish many personal-best times across the board. I thank my teammates and my coaches for their guidance and companionship. I thank the wonderful, professional ladies in the Services for Students with Disabilities office for allowing me to work for them for three years.
I am also duly grateful to have sung in the University Chorus — singing masterful choral pieces such as Carmina Burana and Brahms’ Requiem has made me humbly aware of the subtle beauty and freedom of our minor existence.
I will miss the Upstate fall foliage, the wind whistling through the trees in the Nature Preserve, the deer’s wise stares as I walked down to the pool before dawn, the tranquil surrounding hills. I will miss the company of youth, the individuality of being away from home and the positive freedom of being able to try out anything and everything that one’s heart desires.
A piece of advice: get involved, people. Join clubs, go to different events and experience something new.
Go join an a cappella group, or that club sport. Go take ballroom dance lessons or that extra Gen Ed that interests you. Here at college you have all the tools to assist you in experimenting with your own self, finding out your true likes and dislikes and who you really are as an individual. Once you are at home, this vital opportunity will be lost.
Lastly, I would like to thank Pipe Dream for allowing me the special opportunity to have my thoughts printed on paper the past two and a half years. And a most sincere thanks to you, Binghamton. Now, off to work I go!