We got a tragically brief period of shorts weather during this semester. It’s week 14 already; the last batch of midterms and problem sets are rocketing past us, final projects are being taped together, and final presentations are being delivered. It’s as good a time as any to get sappy about those among us who will be leaving come May, heading straight for that big career fair in the sky.
We’re of course talking about graduating seniors, a group of individuals which The Tartan, along with every other club on campus, will soon be without. These stalwart members who defined our perception of our favorite clubs will soon be on their way to adult life, likely to be miles from the nearest Gallo del Oro.
At this point, it should be pretty clear to the first-years that school isn’t all about academics. Even for a place that assigns roughly 170 hours of homework per week, most of your memories will be made outside of the classroom. Arguably, your most important and long-lasting skills will come from a club or group of friends, since (shockingly) adult life isn’t actually about problem sets. These are the places where you build your personality and form relationships with others, making it all the more emotional to see your peers graduate.
It’s a bit cliché, but a lot of clubs are like families (if the generational turnover rate was about eighty times faster). The timeline looks like this: you’ll join as an underclass student, form bonds with your peers in a semester or three, and before you know it you’re an old person, teaching the young’uns what’s what. It feels like eons of time, but it all happens in four years or fewer. We all get such a short period of time to define what our clubs will be like before the core members depart, leaving the school for new adventures.
We are also in the week post-Carnival, during which many of us got to reconnect with dearly-departed recent alums, as well as wholly unknown distant alums who graduated in ancient years like 2017. It’s humbling to remember how quickly things change, and how truly brief your chance is to make an impact on our campus community.
This is all to say, life in college is fleeting. If you are a part of any community or club at this school, half of your effort will be spent teaching the newcomers how to take on the mantle when they finally become the old, wise seniors.
To those of you who will be staying behind to run your clubs as the newly-minted veteran members, it’s important to remember that your departing elders knew just as little at your age as you do now. As our class of 2024 folks can attest, a huge amount of generational knowledge was lost due to COVID. A lot of clubs are still bouncing back (as the dearth of two-story booths on midway can attest), but now, we all have the privilege of building our orgs anew. Think back on the people who made you feel included in your club, and make sure the next generation of first-years gets to feel the same way. The wheel of time turns fast, and you only get to be the new kids at school for a moment.
As for our graduating seniors, we wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors, and we ask that when you make your first million bucks that you don’t forget about the organizations that defined your time at Carnegie Mellon.
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