Three Students Share their Path to Tufts
A joy of being an admissions officer is sharing so much of Tufts with so many different students. We never know which part of our community will resonate…
The S Word
"So what year are you?" I cringe every time I get asked this question because of the answer I then have to give: I'm a senior.
"Senior" has become somewhat of a profanity in my mind this year; it just feels wrong to say out loud.
I'm a senior, I'm leaving Tufts in under 200 days, thanks for reminding me!
I probably should have seen senior year coming: I knew it was inevitable after freshman year gave way to sophomore year gave way to junior year. Still, senior year came and I had the unsettling revelation that senior year would eventually give way to a world without grades and classes, without all of your closest friends within a 2-mile radius, without the campus I'd come to call my home. Sure, I'd given a lot of thought as to what I would do with my post-grad life throughout my years at Tufts, but it always seemed very far off and intangible.
As terrifying as the idea of impending adulthood is, there are definitely some perks to being a senior, and I plan on taking advantage of all of them. The most obvious is that as seniors, we're the oldest on campus and know how this campus works. I could tell you everything from the best places to study to how to find events with free food (a perk I did not take advantage of as an underclassman nearly enough!). As a senior, you've also spent enough time on campus to have gotten close to a few professors and made life-long friendships with other students. By senior year, you've also gotten far enough along in your major that you can start to move away from lecture classes and into smaller, in-depth seminars. If you love your major, you'll notice that you've really hit your stride academically by the time senior year rolls around. This year is also the year to break out the senior year bucket list! A list I've been cultivating for the past few years, the senior bucket list now hangs in the living room of my apartment for all my housemates and I to check off different tasks as we complete them.
The last perk of being a senior is all the events that the university puts on for you. Tufts knows what a bittersweet time senior year is, and wants us to make the most of it with events like Oktoberfest or Senior Week.
So while I may not be able to say the phrase "I'm a senior" without feeling a little down, I also feel pretty excited and proud to be at this point in my Tufts career. I don't know if I'll be able to completely accept the fact that I'm a senior before graduation, but I can make the most of my time here until then.
