Dear Furman

Dear Furman, 

Ever since starting my college search process you remained to be my top pick. If tuition weren’t insanely expensive and I didn’t need to wait to see the scholarship offers I think my parents would have told me I would be attending school at Furman just to get me to stop talking about how much I loved it and to have that decision off my chest as a stressor (decision making hasn’t ever really been my strong suit). After touring campus on a rainy February day I think my mom was a bit terrified that she was in for a meltdown if Furman didn’t live up to expectations and instead had to tell me to stop saying how much I loved it. I would be lying if I said that I loved every moment of my time at Furman though. College is meant to be a learning experience so if I had loved every minute then maybe that is to say that I would’ve missed out on some of the things I was meant to learn over the past four years. Summing everything up in its entirety is virtually impossible so I know no matter how hard I try I am bound to leave something out but if I had to sum up my experience in a quote I think it would be that “you don’t know if you don’t try” (with “fake it till you make it” as a close second).

 Had I not taken on this “you don’t know if you don’t try” mentality even when deciding on where to go I may not have chosen the school 8 hours away where I knew approximately 4 people. In a lot of ways it would have been more comfortable to go somewhere in-state where I knew 1/4th of my graduating class in high school would be. My college experience would’ve been a lot different had that been the case. I definitely think Furman was the right fit for me when it came to where to spend my undergraduate experience (and they haven’t been able to get rid of me for grad school either).

Freshman year feels as though it just happened although I have grown up a lot since then. Nell and I still laugh about those first nights in our dorm room and how we really didn’t know each other yet struggle to figure out at what point we really became friends instead of just roommates. We laugh at the fact that we thought our RAs could make hall activities mandatory, peeping through our blinds to watch people outside of our building and getting caught, and those workout routines made to “lipgloss” and “dixieland delight” when we were too lazy to walk to the gym we could see from our window. To think how different my experience could have been with a different roommate had Nell and I not requested one another on the housing survey… “you don’t know if you don’t try.”

Sophomore year was definitely what seemed like the longest year of school. I was exhausted as I was living on a noisy hall with a window that was knocked on more than the door when people forgot their keys. Despite this exhaustion I started to put myself out there by applying to be a part of KD’s exec and was able to kick off the summer with my best friend for 3 weeks in Paris and London. Studying abroad wasn’t something I had given much thought to since it is hard to do as an education major but as all my friends were applying for semester long trips I figured I may as well look into it and I am so glad that I did.

Junior and Senior years were by far my favorites. I had the most fun while still working the hardest I ever had. I realized it was never too late to make another best friend and that a healthy balance of socializing could combat some of the stress. While people probably still wouldn’t look to me for a balance of socializing and studies I am so glad I was able to make the most out of my timed found a balance that worked for me. These years didn’t come without challenges but the challenges helped me to grow and really appreciate the more fun moments.

Furman, thank you for everything these past four years. Thank you for helping me to be 100% myself junior and senior year, thank you for that terrible housing placement sophomore year, thank you for changing the food service company senior year and for keeping the cookies just as delicious. Thank you for some of my best friends and fondest memories, thank you for providing me with leadership opportunities and an ability to share my ideas, and thank you for allowing the Starbucks on campus to accept our meal points. Thank you for stressful projects, questioning my major, and allowing me to realize that regardless of what I do in the future I have a strong base to build upon, a network of friends and family to support me, and the Furman bubble to come back to.