Giving Thanks

I’ve grown up at William and Mary.  I don’t mean just in age…everyone does that-it can’t be helped.  I’m talking about maturing…becoming an adult.  The experiences I’ve had here, the people that I’ve met…they did that.  And it is for that that I am truly thankful this Thanksgiving.

I’ll start by telling you a little secret: not every day at William and Mary is great .  I love it here, but part of reality is that there are always going to be those days when life knocks your feet out from under you.  Part of growing up is learning to take those days in stride.  I have learned that there will always be a sunny day to follow.  The most important thing to remember about those days is that without struggle and challenge, success isn’t gratifying.  Without failure it is impossible to grow.  William and Mary is the first place I’ve ever failed at anything (in fact, I think it’s the first place most of us have ever failed).  From those failures, however, I’ve gained so much .  One example: I could have loved working in a research lab.  I could be there right now setting up for today’s experiment.  If I had succeeded in that activity, however, I never would have realized that research is not the career path for me…I never would have had my job in admissions this summer…I wouldn’t be who I am today.  I know now how to stand up for myself when something isn’t going my way.  I can handle conflict now.  I make all this sound like it happened overnight.  It’s a process, but William and Mary fostered that process in me.

But enough of the depressing stuff, it is more than just the hardships at W&M that have helped me grow.  It is also the people that I have met here.  From the professors who are willing to help you create from scratch a new program for the school (read: Life After D.o.G. Street) to the people on my Freshman hall who all piled into my tiny dorm room to watch movies and eat junk food to the speakers I have heard (including the man on whom Hotel Rwanda was based).  Anyone you talk to will tell you that the people at William and Mary are something to behold.  As I interviewed students this summer, the thing I was looking for more than anything else was whether they would try to leave their mark on the College as so many students before them have.  We all leave a footprint at William and Mary.  As future William and Mary alums…we have big shoes to fill.  It isn’t just my friends, either.  I look around this campus at all the people here, and as odd as it may sound, they are all part of what has shaped me.  They are the people whose clubs I have joined, or with whom I have gotten into a heated discussion in class.  They are the people who have picked me up when I fall (literally…I trip all the time).  They are the people who make William and Mary what it is, and, as a result, they are part of who I am today.

So, overall, I am thankful for the growth I have experienced at W&M.  Coming in as a freshman I closely resembled a deer caught in the headlights, but over my years here I have grown into a confident, accomplished young woman, and I have W&M to thank for that.  I never would have dreamed that I was going to spend a summer here helping to select the incoming class of 2013 or that I would start anything like Life After D.o.G. Street…there were even days when it was hard to imagine that I would ever graduate.  But all those things did happen to me (except for graduation which is six months from last Monday).  Over my years here, W&M has shaped me into who I am today, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.