I went to my senior dinner at the Gifford House (fun fact: President Monaco actually lives there!) last night. Senior dinners are a Tufts tradition started by former president Larry Bacow. There are several of them during the spring semester, and it’s a time for seniors to mingle with alumni, professors, and President Monaco himself (and eat free food). After dinner, there was time for students to come up to the microphone and share stories of their favorite Tufts memories. I didn’t get up myself; my excuses are that a) I’m somewhat afraid of microphones, and b) I broke my foot two weeks ago and was afraid of tripping up the stairs to the podium. But if I had gotten up, these are some of the memories I might have shared:
I’ve been in Tap Ensemble since freshman year. Not only have I met a bunch of awesome people through the group, but it’s also shown me how supportive other people at Tufts are of each other’s passions. We’re a pretty small club, and yet President Monaco has come to every show he can!
I never thought that being an intern for the admissions office would be part of my college experience. But I’ve been one for the last two years, and it’s made me love this university even more. I’ve become really close friends with students I never would have met otherwise, and I really enjoy getting to tell prospective and admitted students why I chose to spend four years of my life here.
Speaking of the admissions office, Emily’s husband thought I actually worked there once. (Emily does a lot of the engineering-related things in the admissions office, and she’s pretty awesome. I secretly wish it was okay for me to be best friends with my boss, because she’s great.)
I had this one week in November of senior year where everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong (and then more things went wrong). This culminated in me breaking down into tears in front of not one, but three computer science professors in one afternoon. Obviously, I wish this hadn’t happened. But given that it did, I was really happy to see that they didn’t get awkward or uncomfortable. They handed me a tissue and told me it was going to be okay. Professors are real people, and they want their students to be happy, successful people, too. And sometimes happy, successful people cry and have bad days. That’s okay!
During my sophomore year, my data structures professor convinced me to go to the career fair, even though I barely knew anything about computer science. I ended up meeting these recruiters from a company called Rapid7, and by some twist of fate, I was hired to intern there the next summer. I’m still friends with people I met there, and it really convinced me that being a full-time software engineer was what I wanted to do after college.
My freshman year roommate’s dad was the speaker at the Tau Beta Pi banquet last spring. He at one point asked if any of us knew her, and I said I used to be her roommate. He then made a joke about how messy her room always is in front of a bunch of engineers who knew her. (Sorry, Katrina; you also weren’t that messy!)
I lived in a quad in West Hall sophomore year. One of my roommates had a projector, so we would regularly hang a bed sheet on the wall and watch movies on “the big screen.”
I’m probably forgetting a ton of things, but these are the first ones that popped into my head! Thanks for a great seven semesters, Tufts, and here’s to the last few months!