2008 Woodie Awards
Happy Sailing to Our Graduates
Spencer Hutchins
Issue date: 5/1/07 Section: Opinion
Four years ago, a freshman class began the process of returning home for a summer that came so fast. They were winding down, taking finals, packing up, drifting toward the setting sun of their first year of college. Four years is a long time, and for them, looking that far into the future must have seemed a lifetime, a reality far removed from where they stood then. But the day has arrived, and those starry-eyed freshmen now find themselves solemnly- and triumphantly-robed seniors, bedecked with regalia and honors, armed with a degree and a collection of memories. They are queued up, but this time they are sailing, one by one, into the sunset of their college career.
It is impossible to truly understand how transformational college is until one has experienced it. Children become adults. Dependents become independent. Students become professionals. When it's over, there is no more putting off the essential truth that mature life has now really begun. It must be admitted that the prospect of quitting the halls of our fair university leaves this humble correspondent grateful that he can look forward to one more year before pressing on. However, our graduates do not have such a luxury, though we would not be overreaching to suggest that many would surely stay on if they could. And why?
College is fun. College is exciting and rowdy. It is the indefinable state of limbo between high school and everything else. It is a time during which we begin testing our own wings a bit. It is also the last time in our lives that we can hold on to the childhood which we know too well is rapidly disappearing. Moments of sincere transformation are thrilling, because we are able to look back fondly while simultaneously looking forward, eager and expecting. We are at once embracing our past and our future-one grand gesture that is caught during these four years we have at university.
It is ironic that this period of time, purported to be about education first and foremost, is remembered most for its experiences and its people. You don't forget the friend who broke her finger punching the floor after an NCAA tournament loss, or the time your dorm flooded as a result of a vain attempt at constructing a sauna, or the guy who was a complete spaz and fell bodily into that huge puddle in the middle of campus, or the time you attached wheels to the bottom of a canoe and rowed through the Quad. These are the moments and the people we cherish. These are the memories we will share with our children and grandchildren, getting that mischievous twinkle in the eye and bittersweet feeling in the gut. Gonzaga graduates will remember their friends and their nemeses, their good experiences and bad.
It is impossible to truly understand how transformational college is until one has experienced it. Children become adults. Dependents become independent. Students become professionals. When it's over, there is no more putting off the essential truth that mature life has now really begun. It must be admitted that the prospect of quitting the halls of our fair university leaves this humble correspondent grateful that he can look forward to one more year before pressing on. However, our graduates do not have such a luxury, though we would not be overreaching to suggest that many would surely stay on if they could. And why?
College is fun. College is exciting and rowdy. It is the indefinable state of limbo between high school and everything else. It is a time during which we begin testing our own wings a bit. It is also the last time in our lives that we can hold on to the childhood which we know too well is rapidly disappearing. Moments of sincere transformation are thrilling, because we are able to look back fondly while simultaneously looking forward, eager and expecting. We are at once embracing our past and our future-one grand gesture that is caught during these four years we have at university.
It is ironic that this period of time, purported to be about education first and foremost, is remembered most for its experiences and its people. You don't forget the friend who broke her finger punching the floor after an NCAA tournament loss, or the time your dorm flooded as a result of a vain attempt at constructing a sauna, or the guy who was a complete spaz and fell bodily into that huge puddle in the middle of campus, or the time you attached wheels to the bottom of a canoe and rowed through the Quad. These are the moments and the people we cherish. These are the memories we will share with our children and grandchildren, getting that mischievous twinkle in the eye and bittersweet feeling in the gut. Gonzaga graduates will remember their friends and their nemeses, their good experiences and bad.
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