What. A. Semester. It’s still not completely over for me yet (I still have a few papers left to turn in) but now seems like as good a time as ever to reminisce on the past.
I came to NDSU as a transfer sophomore, and it was my first time living away from home. I had one friend (my roomate) and no idea where the future was going to take me. I changed my major one too many times, but I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything. I made new friends, had amazing new experiences, and learned so much. To top off my time here, next week I fly to Scotland for a study abroad trip, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.
It is such a bittersweet feeling to think about the past, and looking back, here’s some things I will always remember:
The highs
One of the highlights of my last year here is my capstone project. I worked really hard on it and I’m very proud of it. I studied the rhetoric of campus sexual assault policies and the accuracy of their reporting statistics, and conducted a study that compared the readability of the policies with their reporting numbers. It was a lot of long nights, but totally worth it. I submitted it to the W-Challenge and it tied for first place in Advanced Academic Writing, which was the icing on the cake for me. Seeing my work recognized was such a good feeling!
I’m also really proud of the fact that I branched out in terms of the types of writing I tried. I did new things like conduct an iconographic tracking of an internet meme, wrote a couple of personal stories, started blogging, and gave creative writing and poetry a try. If it weren’t for the classes I took, I never would’ve expanded my skills. I really shocked myself with how much I put myself out there and tried new things.
In this class, I dove deeper into social media and how it fits into my life. Social media should be taken more seriously than I had been using it previously, and I created an online presence that I can take with me into the future (wherever that takes me). Working on expanding the social media use of a local nonprofit was also a fun, yet challenging, experience. Being thoughtful and intentional online can be the difference between good and great for small organizations.
In non-academic learning progress, I finally understand how football works. Thanks to many Bison football games, I now “get” football in that I can follow along with a game and have somewhat of a clue what is going on. This is a big milestone for me, as I spent most of my life pretending to know what a first down was.
The lows
The worst thing is probably how badly my procrastination got the best of me this year. Trying to do too many things at once and putting my schoolwork aside for “later” always ended up being a bad decision! But it made me realize if I want to be more successful in any aspects of my life, I need to become a better planner.
I’m done at NDSU! That makes me really sad. I had a great three years here; leaving Fargo behind will be such a bummer for me. The fact that I don’t really have any clarity about what I want to do in the future is kind of starting to worry me, too, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. After all, I enrolled at NDSU and moved to Fargo less than a month before classes began in 2015, and that spur-of-the-moment decision worked out just fine.
This post is kind of a low, I’m not going to lie. I’m over-tired and stressed as I write it, and I can’t put in the effort that a goodbye post deserves. But it’s going to have to do, so thanks for bearing with me and coming along on this blogging journey with me 🙂
Tylie Olson 