All the ways I’ve changed and grown over my four years at Ithaca

There are certain things in this world that can never be fully explained. I can try and tell you what it has been like to take this crazy journey through my four years at Ithaca College, but my words will only carry so much weight. Seeing my dreams and my goals, and even the vision of my future self, slowly transform into reality is a surreal experience. I came to Ithaca because it seemed like the gleaming beacon on the hill: the place where I would find myself.

It isn’t all fun and games. Much of my time was spent hunched over textbooks and writing until my hands finally stopped working, but there is always some salvation. The trick is pretty simple, figure out what makes you happy. For me this started with long walks in the natural lands, and playing music with my friends. These silly little musical conversations soon became songs, and now I find myself in recording studios and on stages doing things I never thought I could or would do.

As the semesters fly by with increasing speed you arrive at your senior year, standing on the precipice of a cliff with seemingly no bottom. Four years of running through the rye and you stumble out wishing there was someone or something to catch you. Student loans and the barrage of questions about your future pin you into a corner, and suddenly you feel trapped by rules of a game you did not even know you were part of. However, there’s always a light at the end of every tunnel.

Take solace in yourself, in the knowledge that you have acquired and the skills and developed as a human being. You are ready to take on the world – you are ready for whatever lies ahead. The knowledge bestowed upon you in college will make you feel like the world is burning. You are given an awareness of suffering and destruction and exploitation that you may have never known existed. For some people college is their time to escape this reality, but all things come to an end and outside the bubble of hope on a liberal arts college campus is the same old world.

We are all different, and yet when it truly comes down to it we are all the same. We all have different experiences, and yet when it comes down to it those experiences share threads of similarity. We have a need to cultivate a personal identity, but to achieve anything we need to glance upon each other with the knowledge that we are all connected.

If you are still on this crazy journey, do not waste time staring out the window and watching. Enjoy the passing moments of beauty and of freedom and internalize them, save them for later when the clouds roll in and things look dark. Relish in the now and consume knowledge with a dire hunger.

Each of us has the ability to make our mark on this world and developed unique capabilities that make us assets in the global struggle to make things right. So when we leave this incubation chamber, wield these tools of compassion and wisdom and recognize that the next realm that lies ahead is our arena to once again turn those aspirations and visions into reality.