I am a senior. To me, this is one of the greatest defeats life could have ever dealt me. Not because I do not enjoy succeeding and passing classes, but because I made a pact with myself a long time ago to never, ever grow up. I have had Peter Pan syndrome since I was 16 years old. I believe that this is because at the age of 16, I realized that life could only get harder. My prime years were over. You may be thinking, “What about turning 21? If you stayed 16, you would never be allowed to drink.” Touché, smarty-pants. That would have blown.

But really, college has been the best three, turning into four, years of my life. And knowing that college is almost over is a little depressing. It’s not because I’m going to have to work a nine-to-five job the rest of my life, not at all! I’m a journalism major, so actually, I probably won’t be able to find a job anywhere; no worries about working. It’s not even that I want to be irresponsible and allowed to act like a child for a little while longer (although don’t get me wrong, that would be awesome).

I’m sad about having one year left of college be- cause I’m not sure I did everything I should have. First off, I turned 18 before I made the time to smash a mailbox. Now if I do it and get caught, I’m in some serious trouble. So, if any of you freshman aren’t 18 yet, get out there and smash a mailbox. I’m not trying to get you to be a delinquent or get into trouble; I just don’t want you to regret anything. So, all illegal things need to happen before you turn 18. I wish I would have had a Justine telling me this when I was still a kid.

Time to be serious: I was a journalism major, creative writing minor from day one. I came into my freshman year knowing what I wanted to do and loving every class I had on those subjects. I never changed my major/minor and I never wanted to. But I was a total chicken. I didn’t start writing for this paper until the end of sophomore year.

As a freshman I thought “Oh, I don’t want to take on classes and the newspaper. Too much work might affect my grades.” Dumbest. Thing. You. Can. Say. While college classes are harder than high school classes, your freshman year will still be the easiest ac- ademic-wise. And holding yourself back only means that you are wasting time. I truly believe that I didn’t start living my college experience to the fullest until second semester of my sophomore year.

By my junior year, I was on staff at the paper, a part of three honor societies, singing in the women’s choir and working on several small projects within the English and journalism departments. I was having the most fun I had ever had. But it was (and is) sad to think that I only had two years of it, instead of four.

I don’t want you to stretch yourself too thin, though. Students who do that experience almost as little as the students who do nothing, because they are too busy bouncing around to all their different groups.

Be smart, know your boundaries and get involved in things that will make you happy and work for your career, because those two things should really coincide.

So, if you are a journalism major, get on up to the Collegian office, CFA 338, shake my hand and start brainstorming stories with us. If you like it, then you have started early and are going to have an awesome four years. If you hate it, then you found out right away and can switch majors before you lose too much time. Either way, get involved now and meet awesome people like me. After all, I’m a senior and so are other people on staff. We are only here for one more year.

And we are going to need some amazing, brave young kids to take our place.