When I came to Bradley my freshman year, I had no idea what I was getting into. In high school, I was most actively involved in avoiding slow walkers in hallways crammed with three thousand students and calculating how many hours of homework I would have a night.
The road to high school graduation felt like a four-year-long marathon I was forced to crawl, but I left knowing I wanted to be an English major—which is really just saying I knew I wanted to be unemployed but (hopefully) happy. After the sweltering Activities Fair and the first week of classes, I knew that Bradley was something more.
To say that Bradley changed my life would be an understatement. As an English major, I originally wanted to work in publishing because (why else) I was a book nerd. After reading some of my writing, my professor placed me into his intermediate creative writing class. Now, instead of serving coffee to editors at Penguin, I’ll be working toward a Master of Fine Arts in poetry in hopes of becoming a professor as demanding and inspiring as the ones I’ve had here.
Bradley has also given me an excuse to get involved outside of dodging potential human collisions. Here, all of my interests have a home: I became a dancing, writing, photographer! More impressively, the clubs I joined (Orchesis, “Broadside” and The Scout) were not simply leadership opportunities and resume builders. The friends I’ve made have been some of the most supportive and passionate (even liking and awarding me in spite of my absence) and have become the backbone of my time at Bradley.
To thank everyone who has made this experience worthwhile and meaningful would probably result in a misty-eyed, 3-minutes-too-long, Oscar-like acceptance speech. To thank The Scout, though, for their confidence in hiring a mousy freshman and keeping her around, is not only necessary, but welcome.
To all who’ve made this marathon fly by with a new personal record, thank you.
