I can hardly believe that this year has less than one month left to go.
I know we say it every year, but I honestly can’t believe how quickly this year went by. Although the fact that I’m finally a graduating senior might have something to do with that.
I’ve been doing this for quite a while, so now that I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, it feels less like a crawl and more like a mad dash with each passing day.
Of course, I’m not the only one on his way out. In fact, most of my campus-related activities are led by graduating seniors. Perhaps now you know where I’m headed with this.
Here is my question: when this year’s seniors leave in May, who in the world is going to take our places? We’ve spent years getting to know each other and gaining each other’s trust, and now that we’ve finally gotten settled in, we have one year left. Now fraternities, sororities, culture clubs, honor societies, networking groups and even The Pacer has to search for students willing to replace graduating officers and staff.
Still though, I appreciate the weight that graduation lifts from UTM’s shoulders every year. It means that UTM has the potential to be completely different next year. As scary as that sounds, think of all the groups on campus right now that could use a makeover. This sudden loss of upperclassmen might be exactly what some groups need to come back from bad leadership.
And don’t worry about the groups that are losing good leaders; a ‘good’ leader has a well-prepared and competent potential replacement waiting to take control. That being said, I should probably look into suggesting a replacement for Viewpoints.
Remember, when we leave, our mentality is likely to leave with us. Then it’ll be up to the next generation of upperclassmen to define the UTM social experience. If that thought makes you nervous, current upperclassmen, at least we have another semester to pass a little knowledge down.
It’s important that future upperclassmen understand their groups on both a technical level and a fundamental level. And I believe it’s up to us to make our groups’ purposes known before we go.
So, fellow upperclassmen, I hope you remember to form a battle plan when we return in January. Let’s leave UTM an even better place than when we first came ourselves.
