My Final Blog (Things that Stay)
My final blog! I’ve been staring at this blank page, and for once, I’m out of advice. Academics, admissions, clubs, housing, the ever-growing spreadsheet of blog ideas… I think I’ve covered all of what I can. But here I am, a senior in my last semester. And somewhere between that first post I wrote as a wide-eyed 18-year-old and this one, something shifted. Back then, I chose my words carefully, held my tongue, kept things polished and safe. I was still figuring out who I was, and it showed.
I think I know a little better now.
So for this last one, I’m not going to give you a guide or a list or a how-to. Instead, I want to reflect on what four years at Tufts actually taught me. Not about college, but about myself. And the people I’ve met along the way. Maybe some of what I’ve shared here will give you a sense of what to expect, or, at the very least, what’s possible.
When I toured Tufts in high school, my tour guide said something like, everyone here is nice. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but what I can say is that I’m leaving with the same friends I met freshman year. I got lucky. Somewhere in the blur of club fairs and social events and the nervous excitement of not yet knowing anyone, a few people just… stuck. For good. What I’ve come to notice is that everyone at Tufts seems to be deeply passionate about something, and all of my closest friends are no exception, each in their own completely different way. We’ve grown together over four years. I’ve lived with these people, cried with them, laughed with them, and more recently, spent hours spiraling about graduation and what it actually means to become a real adult. Tufts brought me to them. I left high school with a handful of friends I knew would be with me forever. Tufts doubled that number. Not a bad deal, for sure.
Learning to trust people, really trust them, has a way of teaching you to trust yourself too. I am entirely different from who I was at 18. I didn’t participate in class, never raised my hand, and wouldn’t dare disagree with someone out loud even when I was doing exactly that in my own head. While I’ve had my fair share of disagreements and complaints with Tufts, it remains a place that welcomes dissent in the classroom, and in a way I didn’t expect. One of my professors, someone I got into a genuine back-and-forth with over the meaning and weight of the word power, once told me he welcomes that kind of pushback because it changes the way he thinks too. Learning isn’t vertical. It’s horizontal. No one in any classroom has a monopoly on understanding.
So I learned to disagree intentionally, and to act on it.
I’m more confident now, partly because of my professors, partly because of my friends, and partly because of myself. I think if you knew me at 18 and looked at me today, you’d be able to tell. I dress more like myself than I used to. I proudly wear the tattoos I’ve collected over the years. My voice doesn’t shake as much. And I’ve been working on the cuticle-picking thing.
It may sound obvious, but I’ve learned that my best work comes when I feel like I have a genuine stake in what I’m creating. My strongest essays, presentations, and speeches, and even the blogs I’ve written, are the ones driven by passion for the message and the outcome. When you’re telling a story you actually want to tell, advocating for something you can feel yourself in, you will find a way to do it well. I think my academic highs and lows reflect exactly this. The work I’m proudest of never felt like an assignment. It felt like something worth getting right. I’m grateful to have found, in so many of my classes, the space to make the work genuinely mine.
That’s one lesson I’m carrying with me. I’m pursuing the career I want because I care about it, because there are stories I want to tell, and because at the end of the day, it matters to me. That’s enough.
College is not easy. It’s fun, sometimes wonderfully so, but it is not easy. Being away from family, from home, from everything familiar is hard, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. But the distance gives something back too. It’s where confidence begins to grow, and where, for maybe the first time, you stop living by everyone else’s expectations. You quietly figure out who you are. And you won’t get along with everyone. You’ll dread certain classes and sit through worse ones. But you sift, you sort, and somehow the things that matter find a way of staying.
And finally, I’ve become grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to learn, and for the freedom to learn about what I want to learn. Grateful for the friends I’ve come to love, and for the professors who saw something in me and supported me along the way. Grateful for my family, who helped me get here in the first place. For the seasons, sledding down Pres Lawn with my friends, watching the leaves change color by Tisch, and the joy of finally feeling the sun on my face after a long New England winter. And the bunnies, always the bunnies, regardless of the season. More than anything, I’ve learned to value reciprocity, to take what I’ve been given here and find ways to give something back.
Now, at 21, in my final semester and preparing to spend the next five to seven years chasing a PhD, I feel excitement rather than fear. My experience and the people I met along the way did that!!!!!!!