In one month I’ll be done with my bachelor’s degree – is a sentence I can honestly admit it really crept up on me. It feels like just yesterday I was getting lost on the Brantford campus, showing up to the wrong class, and then awkwardly leaving to keep searching for the right one. Good times.
For the first few months of my first year, after I had finally mapped out where my lecture halls were, I would head straight home after every class to start working on my readings and assignments. I didn’t know anyone in my program and thought that the classroom was the only place that held opportunity. Plus, being perpetually shy didn’t exactly help.
It felt like everyone around me knew exactly what they were doing, and I was still trying to figure it out. I’ll never forget the one night after a long exam, as I walked into the lobby where everyone was nursing their exhausted hands, and overheard two girls talking about how this exam had been their last ever. I drove home that night thinking about how weird it must feel to be completely done, and the stress of joining a job in my field after school took over. I thought about my last exam, and quickly my stomach was filled with anxiety and dread. How does one find their path?
This all changed one day when I decided to be bold and head to campus early to study. A girl who I had seen in my classes for weeks sat next to me with an open box of Timbits for us to munch on as we got to know each other. She introduced me to Her Campus, which has become the most amazing opportunity to share my writing and meet people interested in the same things as me. Her Campus encouraged me to take the professional writing minor I am working on now, and to step outside of my comfort zone into new things.
Being surrounded by people who shared my passions validated the dreams I had carried alone forever, and taught me that it’s not about finding your path, it’s about finding your tribe. Campus quickly became a place filled with familiar faces where I would spend my time before, after and between classes. No literature review was final until there was a heated discussion over warm teas about it.
As I now begin some of my final assignments and start preparing for my last exam, I don’t feel the anxiety in my stomach that I expected. While in part this could be because my version of the final exam talk will be spent alone in my bedroom, I know the people I have met helped me feel confident in taking these next steps. We learn so much from the experiences of people around us, and the campus provides the space and time to learn and listen. I am so grateful to have the time on campus that I did, and for the power that came from finding my tribe there.