When I was in the fourth grade, I joined my elementary school’s LEGO robotics team. All the other kids were, of course, eager to play with LEGOs and naturally shoved each other aside to be the ones building the robot. Being a timid child, I was soon sidelined and got stuck programming it.

Fast forward to high school, and I was teaching myself Java, Python and even a little C++. To me, there was something a bit magical about programming. Building is always satisfying, but building something with nothing more than your mind and a keyboard is truly special.

The plan was simple: go to college, major in computer science, get a cool software engineering job. For over a decade, I never even bothered to consider any alternatives. Why would I ever second-guess what I was supposed to do? I was so sure this was predestined that — for a long time — I barely took any initiative to make it happen. 

I took programming courses in high school, but breezed through my assignments — doing only the bare minimum — and gave my classmates the answers so we could play a bootlegged copy of “Halo” together. I only bothered applying to two colleges and ended up at the one that didn’t “CAP” me (hiss). While my friends and classmates stayed up late to study for the dreaded engineering physics final freshman year, I pulled an all-nighter playing “Donkey Kong Country Returns” on the Wii from start to finish just to prove I didn’t need to study. School, to me, was just a place I had to be between now and then.

Yet somehow, despite all the arrogance and self-sabotage, it looks like the plan worked out: I’m set to graduate and even have a cool job lined up in Seattle. That was never in doubt (even if there were some stressful moments here and there, shoutout Philip Ritchey), but what surprised me the most was that eventually, Texas A&M became more than a place between high school and my career.

I, like most computer science students, thought my major was just about programming — only to discover computer science is just another word for math upon starting my real coursework. And I hated math — well, I mostly hated having to study, for once. But little by little (I even had to go to office hours once), I began to appreciate the challenge. It turns out learning, even just for its own sake, is immensely satisfying. 

One of the things that surprised me most was that I gained a love for teaching. I’ve never had a formal teaching role, but I realized that everywhere I was doing so to some extent, whether it was as an editor at The Battalion or as a friend, a classmate or a peer in a student organization like Formula Electric. It was never something I sought out; in fact, it actively clashed with my introverted, timid self-image. Yet somehow I kept teaching, and eventually learned there’s no joy stronger than helping others and watching them succeed.

A&M is a complicated place, and I have a lot of complicated feelings towards it. That being said, I’ll always remember this campus as the place where I gained a love of learning, figured out just a little bit more about myself and started to break out of my introverted shell. 

I’ll also remember A&M for the people I met along the way. Ryan Lindner, Charis Adkins and Ana Sofia Sloane, y’all were amazing opinion writers, editors and friends. Thanks for sticking with me and the opinion desk when it was just us. Michaela Rush, Kyle McClenagan and Caleb Powell, y’all were amazing mentors, and I owe you all my success at The Battalion and beyond. Zoe May, thank you for picking me as your partner-in-crime (otherwise known as managing editor). Nico Gutteridge and Ian Curtis — our current editor-in-chief and managing editor, respectively — thank you for your friendship (and putting up with my senioritis). You both have incredibly bright futures ahead.

Thanks and Gig’em. You made the drive to College Station worth it.