The weather is cooling down, everyone has a few tests under their belt, and the end of the beginning is now. Some time from beginning to mid-October, the new school year starts becoming the most real.
The first few weeks, everyone is settling in. Freshmen are adjusting to being on their own, sophomores are getting used to their new wildcat and seniors are looking for real-world jobs. For everyone, it is an adjustment from summer back to school and another year higher on the totem pole.
But now, routines are stabilized. Clubs, organizations, sororities and fraternities have their members. Semester internships and jobs are in full swing, and you know which classes you need to study extra hard for.
This may be a sense of relief to some. For those of you that spent all summer getting ready for spring rush, or have finally gotten into the organization of your dreams, congratulations and welcome to fall.
However, maybe you want it to be something more.
Being the daughter of a proud Aggie, this is the time where I look at the year ahead and think, “Is it going to be as great as my dad’s years in college?” It is a hard question to ask, especially if I am three failed tests deep into the year.
We each come to college with these realities of how fun the year is going to be. This expectation is unfair, especially for something as unpredictable as college. None of us alone in creating these expectations either.
If you are at Texas A&M, either you are either naturally very smart or you work very hard. People with these qualities tend to want things to be better than they are currently. This makes each of us exceptional students, but do not forget to give yourself a break.
This is the perfect time. You do not have to have the same college experience as your brother, dad or cousin. Let the beginning of the end be a time where you set a tone of embracing each day.
Remember those days in high school where you could not wait to finally get into Texas A&M or be able to stop taking geometry. Well, you are here, and don’t wish it away because it is not the same glamorous college experience your dad talks about in his stories. Texas A&M is different by the day, and the people here are some of the nicest in the world.
Embrace Aggieland and all of its glory. Wear overalls to Midnight Yell, eat at Fuego, ask that girl to go out, do your homework in the flag room. It is an experience each of us goes through individually, but together. Young and old, we all have an end to the beginning. Most of us even get a little nervous thinking about our year ahead.
I may not have the same exact experience as my dad. However, in three years, I will be a Texas A&M alumna and join him in the real world. I do not want to look back on these years and see myself dreading the year ahead because everything did not align perfectly. Instead, I want to look at it as the beginning of the new.
With the end of the beginning comes the beginning of the end, and we can write the ending however you please. So to the end of this year, I will embrace each hour I spend in Evans — because there are probably Aggies out there that think about how great it would be to spend a day back in College Station.