Dear Class of 2015,
This is really it: your last semester
at Trinity.
Ever.
Is it sinking in?
You probably don’t need a lot of extra
pressure to get a job or worry about the future. That doesn’t help. But you may
help yourself (and each other) by recognizing how special it is to be in your
last semester: each class, each rehearsal, each encounter or difficulty can
take on a special kind of sheen. Part of what makes college special is the fact
that it ends. In a way, you — insofar as you identify as a “college student” —
end.
It must feel rather traumatizing to be
born after so much development in utero. It no doubt seems like the end of the
world. But of course it’s so much more. It’s birth into a new world, one you’ve
heard mediated all this time but now can (must) live within, become a part of,
even help create.
Maybe the most salient difference
between birth and graduation is that you know you will (or hope to) leave
Trinity some day. That knowledge can be repressed, as we usually do with death,
or it can be seen and used. If seen and used, you are faced with another split
possibility: you can let senioritis infect your whole being, minimizing your
class contributions, skipping class, letting cynicism take over, or just not
really being present for what is after all temporary; you could see it all as
one final hurdle before “real” life begins. Or you can attend to the last
twelve weeks here with care and attention. You can realize with the fullness of
your being that those classes, performances, events and encounters are both a
culmination and a heightening, a distillation of all you’ve done, of all your
education so far, not only from Trinity but also since you entered
kindergarten.
If you slow down and pay attention to
these last weeks, you may see them giving you profound clues about how you
might live your life after graduation. You may notice how the work you’re now
doing in your major, minor, common curriculum courses and co-curricular
activities at the top of your game synthesizes all the skills, talents, ideas,
desires and interests you’ve pursued for so long. You may find a special life
in the intersection between the apex of your past and the inciting event of
your future.
Have a wonderful final semester.
~Kyle Gillette, Class Marshal
