Happy fall, Colliegettes! One of our all-time favorite fall activities (besides Pres Ball of course)
is the annual Alumni and Family Weekend. As a senior, it was a very bittersweet moment for
me, but here was my experience with it!
Due to COVID-19, the last time my parents came for Alumni and Family weekend was my
freshman year in 2018. A lot has changed since then not only for Fairfield, but with the person I
was my freshman year. For starters, I am actually happy with my major, have a solid friend
group, and am genuinely happy here. My freshman year I was still battling the woes of a first
year in college and didn’t really know what direction I wanted my life to go in. Now, three years
later, I know who I am and what I want to do with my life.
As a senior, my parents and I decided to still stop by campus and see all of the activities that
Fairfield had provided on Saturday. We started off at my beach house, where my parents finally
got to see it for the first time! We then went to Molto for lunch and it was absolutely incredible.
If you haven’t gone there yet, it’s a great place to take your parents or go for half priced bottles
of wine on Mondays if you are 21+.
We then went to Stag Fest which was a lot of fun! My parents enjoyed seeing some of my
friends there, as well as walking around the different food vendors provided. We ran into some
alumni I was friends with that graduated last year which was great too. We then headed back to
the beach to my friends’ houses on the point to continue the festivities, where my parents saw
first-hand what it’s like to be a senior in college living 500 feet from the beach.
Overall, it was really great to see my parents again. I hadn’t seen them since the end of August,
so it was really nice spending some quality time with them again and catching up in full besides
our weekly phone calls. However, it was also a bittersweet moment when I realized this would
be my last Parent’s weekend as a Fairfield University student. While I will be attending Fairfield
for graduate school to receive my Master’s in accounting, this was the last time my parents
would experience being with me in such a great environment. Seeing all of the familiar alumni
faces was great, but it also reminded me that in the very near future, my time at Fairfield will
sadly come to an end.
With all of that being said, live it up these next few years—whether you are just starting your
time at Fairfield, or you’re a senior like me. This is the time to find yourself and discover what
you want to do with your life, so make sure you’re doing just that! Spend time with your friends,
go out, take care of yourself, and study. You are here for a reason, but don’t let that reason be the
end all be all. In the blink of an eye, you’ll be at your last Alumni and Family weekend as a
student, and you’ll wonder just how quickly the time did in fact go by.