“How am I done already?”

That is the question a lot of seniors here at the University will be asking themselves as their last semester on campus winds down. Senior year is probably the most bittersweet year on campus, as a current senior (yours truly) can attest.

Senior year is filled with memories of all the fun times had on campus, a feeling of nostalgia for their care-free underclassmen days, and finally a feeling of regret, that maybe they hadn’t accomplished all that they would have wanted to when they first stepped foot on campus.

So from a senior, please, go to that info night that seems interesting. Don’t avoid things just because your friends aren’t going. Make the most of your time on campus and join a club, become passionate about something that seemed foreign to you coming into college. Because before you know it, those four years will be gone and all you will have is a string of “what ifs.”

Garrett Fisher, senior in LAS, echoed a lot of these thoughts and provided some advice to the youngsters out there who are just getting going at the U of I.

Fisher stated that the best thing about being a senior was that he had so few studying hours and so much free time. He remarked that the worst thing about being a senior was not knowing what to do with all of the free time. It is this catch-22 that makes being a senior so confusing and exciting at the same time.

“The most important thing is to find a balance between schoolwork and going out,” Fisher said on the topic of advice to freshmen, still getting started in their academic career.

Fisher mentioned how the first thing job recruiters usually look at is a student’s GPA, when discussing the importance of keeping up with one’s schoolwork.

Fisher then mentioned that if he could change anything about his time spent on campus it would be to try more of the local cuisines in the Champaign-Urbana area, and suggests that those of you with time left here do so.

That’s the thing about senior year: everyone has so many great memories of their time on campus, but when pressed, each and every senior will tell you they didn’t do everything perfectly. The same goes for senior year, there are pros and cons to it, but I guarantee you no one is focusing on the cons for their last semester.

You know the lay of the land, you don’t get lost walking to classes anymore and you know all the shortcuts to get to your favorite bar on campus.

You get out of cover at various bars throughout the week for “senior night” and never have to worry about undercover cops catching you with a drink in your hand.

You get to register first for classes and avoid all those 8 and 9 a.m. classes you dreaded going to so much as an underclassman. You also get to take that easy, interesting, elective you’ve always wanted to take since you’re done with your core classes.

But the biggest positive you have as a senior is your friends. You have your clique well established, hanging out with some of these people since Welcome Week freshman year. They know all about your embarrassing drunk stories but also have helped you through your darker times when you needed help. It is spending time with these people everyday that makes college so awesome, having all of your best friends just a short walk away.

However, just like in the real world, there are always valleys that accompany peaks, and senior year in college is no different.

One negative is that you feel like a grandpa or grandma at just 21 years of age.  You see freshman on campus that you remember as your campers or your little buddies in high school and you can’t believe they are at your university. 

An additional downside to senior year is also having to go through job searches while keeping up with your workload that you are given in classes. It’s tough to find a balance between these, as looking for jobs is easily equivalent to a four credit course, trust me.

But the worst thing about being a senior is that everything is for the last time. Your last date event, last bar crawl, last barn dance; there is nothing harder than saying goodbye to all those events and places that made your four years at Illinois so unforgettable.

Everyone made mistakes in their time here at UIUC, but what’s important is to savor every lasting moment of your time left on campus, because while college may be a roller-coaster ride, we won’t get off until they shut the ride down.CB

Jason is a senior in LAS.

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