A Thank You Note to Xavier
May 3, 2017 |
In a couple of weeks, if all goes according to plan, I'm going to graduate. I'll be moving out of my house, starting my career, and leaving Xavier. That last part might be the most difficult. My four years here haven't been free of difficulties but leaving here means I'm moving on from this chapter of my life, and that's hard to accept. This place shaped me. It formed me into the person I am today and readied me for life beyond college, and I can't say enough how much I appreciate the Xavier community for helping me get this far.
These past four years have been nothing short of incredible, but there was a lot of adversity along the way. Freshman year I came in from Phoenix, AZ knowing only two people. At first it was tough to find my place and fit in. I feared the future and was far away from home. I wasn't able to fly home for Thanksgiving that first semester, and the homesickness was starting to get the better of me. After some less-than-satisfactory grades, I had to make a decision: stick it out and hope it gets better, or transfer back to the comfort of home. There were a lot of factors pulling me back to Phoenix: family, old friends, and the comfort of home, but I knew that if I gave up just because it wasn't immediately perfect I would regret my decision. I made the call to stay around for one more semester. I figured that I needed a little more time to give this place a fair chance and since then I haven't looked back.
Just the other day I picked up a letter I wrote to myself at the end of Manresa week freshman year. In that letter I wrote down the goals I had for my time at Xavier, and the top concern I had was finding a major that I was passionate about. In my first couple years I struggled to find that passion, but as soon as I met with someone in the Communication Arts department I knew I had to be there. It was the first time since coming to college that I found something I was interested in and could succeed at.
My decision to become a Communication Studies major was one of the best decisions I made at Xavier. Learning the science behind how people talk to each other and interact was always something I've wanted to do and my major gave me that information. It set me on course to graduate with a degree that was actually interesting to me and set me up in a career that I truly want to be in. Thanks to the Comm Arts department, I feel truly prepared to move on from college, and that's not something I ever thought I would be able to say.