What you will and won’t miss about Rutgers when you graduate

The fall semester is over and for some, that means graduating and moving on, and others, one more semester and graduation in the spring. After four or so years of hitting the books, staying late at the library, and dealing with Sakai’s epic meltdowns, all of the hard work we have all put in is about to pay off. As we look back at the time that we have spent here at Rutgers University, we can’t help but reminisce about the many things we will miss once we move on to the real world… and all the things we won’t.

What you will miss

The first week of the semester

There is nothing like syllabus week at Rutgers. Whether in the spring or the fall, you can’t help but take in all of your surroundings and the beautiful landscapes of Douglass, Livi, Busch, and College Ave. You breathe in that fresh air while you walk to that building you know like the back of your hand or a new one that you are about to venture into for the first time and be happy that you are back. After graduation, there is no more syllabus week. No more looking forward to the new people in your class who might end up being your best friend, or your significant other. No more preparing for what the entire semester has in store for you all wrapped up in those couple pages of syllabi. That fresh, “I bought all of these new notebooks and pens”, “this semester is going to be the best one yet” feelings, are sure to be missed after we toss our tassels to the side.

The football games

There is nothing like a Rutgers football game. Everyone chanting in tandem, the sea of red that floods the stadium, the hype over a win, and the sheer disappointment over the loss. Not to mention, the pregame and after parties that always accompanied them. It was the social event of the fall semester, every fall semester, a chance to fully embrace being a Scarlet Knight. Wherever our next steps in life take us, we all should remember just how fun it was to be a part of the Rutgers family while we were in those games.

The food

Whether you’re a fan of the fat sandwiches and grease trucks, the dining halls, or the vast amounts of restaurants on campus, there is always a variety of places to eat. As college students, we all know how important food is to our lives, to our budgets, and to our ability to do well in our classes. Rutgers’ ability to offer so many different choices for so many different palettes, definitely helped to enrich all of our undergraduate lives. Not all of us will be heading off to places that have such variety, so we should definitely be grateful for the last four years in which we did.

Opportunities

What we should really miss and be grateful for, after our years at Rutgers, are the many opportunities that we have had to grow and expand as people. Rutgers has so much to offer, between clubs and internships, and classes that help you develop your skills and intellect. Rutgers provided us all with the chance to work hard, strive for our dreams, and attain them. Through sororities and fraternities, acapella groups, literary magazines like The Imagination, blogs like The Tab, religious clubs, cultural clubs, debate clubs, science clubs, study groups, the tutoring centers for every department, internships within each field of study, The Writers at Rutgers, events like The Big Chill, or even the understanding of our right to peacefully protest and share our opinions, we were all given the opportunity to enhance our sense of being. Through all of these facets of Rutgers, we have been able to enjoy our undergraduate college education and discover who we are and what it is that we are passionate about. That is something that I think we should all be grateful for.

What you won’t miss

The Buses

It’s safe to say that none of us are going to miss the dreaded bus system of Rutgers. it has been the bane of our existence since our first day freshman year when we were all fearfully trying to navigate which bus to take so that we could get to our intended destination: is it the LX or the REXL? Why is the B the only huge bus? Which one is faster, the EE of the F? Even as seniors, the anxiety over catching the right bus, waiting for the bus, or running to catch the bus you need because another one isn’t coming for fifteen minutes and you just make it when they are pulling away and won’t stop for you, was always prevalent. No matter how long you’ve been here, the hatred and anxiety for the bus situation never really went away. After graduation, I think we are all going to salute a certain finger off to those buses and say good riddance.

Crime alerts/death notices

We have all dreaded those infamous crime alerts and/or messages from the President over the death of a student. None of those emails were fun to receive. I think we can all agree that we have either received so many that we just didn’t open them up anymore or became so numb to them that it no longer phased us, which is sad. No one likes to hear about the robberies and stabbings and muggings that are happening right on the sidewalk you take to get to Calculus or World War II, or the young person with so much potential who passed away. It’s frightening and disturbing, and something we should all be grateful is done/almost done with. Though the real world is not lost in its horrors and upheavals, hopefully, we won’t receive them in abundance, as we did those emails.

Sakai 

The three most dreaded words of every student at Rutgers: Sakai is down. Remember the hackings? Or the professor who had no compassion for you when you couldn’t turn in your paper? Or the anxiety you felt when you couldn’t access the reading you saved at the last minute because you thought it would be right there with the click of a button? Definitely, a “to not miss” part of the Rutgers undergraduate experience. Sakai going down was sometimes a worse occurrence than the bus system, and that’s really saying something. It happened far too often and it made everyone’s lives supremely difficult. After graduation, most of us will never have to look at Sakai ever again! Pop open those champagne bottles now!

Goodbye Rutgers, Hello Real World

No matter what, Rutgers was our home for the last four or so years, and everything that we loved and hated was a part of one of the best and most trying experiences of our lives. So, as we remember what it is that we will and won’t miss, we should acknowledge the fact that Rutgers was the greatest school to have all of these missable, and non-missable moments at. Thank you, Rutgers. It’s been real.