Incase you’ve been living under a rock (because it’s all I’ve been talking about on this blog lately) I am now a senior at Georgetown! Over the summer people kept asking me, “what are you looking forward to in your senior year” or “what have you got on your bucket list” and I found those questions so hard to answer! Not because I wasn’t looking forward to it, I was, but because I didn’t write a physical bucket list and the things I was looking forward to weren’t necessarily tangible. Starting out the semester and getting my life in order, I now have a better idea of what I want to spend my time doing this year, and I think it manifests into a sort of theme for senior year instead of a bucket list of items. So, that’s what I’ll share in this blog post!
During the summer I did have a list of random things/activities that I wanted to do in senior year but they were like really random things that didn’t fit together to be a sort of bucket list. One of the big things that I’m doing this semester is running my first ever marathon! This was definitely a bucket list item for senior year, and I’m really just hoping that I can pull it off. It was one of those full circle moments, where I thought, “I really want to challenge myself in my last year of school in a way that isn’t just academic or professional.” I’m running the marathon at the end of October with my best friend from high school, who I did a half marathon with in high school, hence the full circle moment!
Another thing I really wanted to do this semester was take some classes about interesting topics that I just want to take just for fun. I’m kind of at the point in college where I’ve taken most of the courses for my major and minor and I’m sort of just ticking off the last few things. I’ll be honest, once you get past the big required classes in the major, the courses get really specific and oftentimes I’ll find that I’m not actually learning many new things or they are things that I’m not really going to use moving forward. So, this year I wanted to take at least one course each semester purely for my own interests. This semester I’m enrolled in a Children’s Literature class where we’re currently reading fairytales and analyzing them and my homework this weekend is to read Peter Pan – how amazing is that? Taking this class in my senior year of college also feels very full circle because it’s nostalgic to think about all the books from back when I was first learning how to read!
Something else that I wanted to do this year which is a little random is to find a part-time job that I won’t be able to do at any other point in my life. The rules for employment for students on an international student visa are quite specific, so for the most part my part-time jobs have to be on-campus. For the past few years I’ve done a research job on campus, which I’ve learned a lot from, but I guess for senior year, I just want something different! My dream job was working for the children’s daycare on campus this year; I’m determined to find something outside of class that I feel really inspired and excited to be working on. I know it’s so random to have a bucket list item about a specific campus job, but maybe I’m just weird like that.
Another one of the random activities that I wanted to do this year was participate in this dance show at Georgetown, which is one of the most popular activities on campus! Am I a dancer? No. But I still thought it would be a fun opportunity to do something that I’m realistically never going to do again in my life. This year I feel like I’m seizing all those opportunities to make the most of this time, even if they are things that are a little out of my comfort zone, to just do the things that I won’t be able to once I’m out of college.
And so, my list of things that I want to do this year might seem like they don’t fit together at all. But to me, the theme for this year is taking the time to enjoy the life that I’ve worked so hard to set myself up for in the past couple of years. This year is about taking the time to slow down and enjoy what I’ve worked for, to do things that I might not be able to do again, and just close out all those full circle moments. What do I mean by that? Well, for the past few years of college I’ve been so disciplined with myself; putting work first, waking up early to study, and sticking to a schedule. I still very much do that, but this year, if the opportunity arises to do something that I genuinely want to do, I have the flexibility to do that! To me, all the experiences I listed in this post, fall into this theme; they are things that I genuinely really want to do and that I feel I won’t get a chance to after college.
For example, this past week two of my favorite authors came to DC and I thought to myself – what are the chances that the two of them ever come to DC again and I can go hear them speak in person? Was it a busy week, yes? But like I said, this year is about basking in some of that time that I’ve given myself so I went to the event with a friend and it was the best night!
This year feels different to the past few years at college, but I feel like I’m really investing in me and giving myself the opportunities that are important to me! I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!
See you next year,
