In my last column, I wrote about pop culture events that were significant to me and also acted as time markers in my years at college. I keep thinking that it feels like I just moved into my freshman dorm yesterday, but when I think about certain songs that were hits during orientation, for example, it seems like eons ago. Oh, and high school seems like an eternity away.
Similarly I look back at my four years of experiences as a whole and have a pretty toxic thought: What did I do, and was it enough? Did I “do college right,” whatever that means? These questions are so incredibly counterproductive, as my dad would say, because there is nothing I can do about it now.
As this is one of my last columns, I feel like it is necessary to write another nostalgia piece. However, this time I will try to think about all of the experiences I have had at Hopkins while acknowledging those which I unfortunately was not able to have. Bear with me since this will be a rambling list.
In terms of Hopkins adventures, I was incredibly lucky to have participated in a myriad of activities ranging from campus programming (I’m on the HOP, one of the best decisions I ever made and something I never knew I would love) to Greek life to having a radio show to being a member of a club team and going to many tournaments at neighboring schools to being an editor-in-chief of a campus publication. These activities kept me incredibly busy, but I learned how to manage my priorities and also met some friends for life.
In my last semester, I crossed intramurals off the bucket list when I formed a co-ed soccer team with friends from my Cuba Intersession trip. I tried to take advantage of as many weekend trips organized by the school as I could, but I regret to say that I never went on an outdoors trip. I have quite a few friends on JHOC and OP and consider them all to be so cool. I wish I had signed up for a trip. I also never used the rock wall in the Rec Center.
I worked on at least one campus event each week I was in school. I participated in community service with APO for the first two years. I directed one of the Barnstormers’ freshman one-acts with a best friend a year after being in one myself and was in the musical The Drowsy Chaperone in freshman year. I also took a performance theater class. I never took a dance class or used a 3-D printer.
I went abroad for two Intersessions and an entire semester, and, like I said before, not a day goes by when I do not consider myself the luckiest person to have had those opportunities.
I will graduate with a major and minor that are fairly different from one another. I took so many classes outside of my major that challenged me. I never took a Women and Gender Studies class, and I regret it.
I had two campus jobs. I had an internship last fall that helped me learn a lot about Baltimore. Baltimore is as much a part of the Hopkins college experience as anything else. I devoted an entire article last year in this column to the fact that I love going to school in a city, and how important it is to have chances to do cultural things off campus. I took a museums course freshman year that helped me explore a lot of Baltimore early on and get a lay of the land. I stayed in Baltimore last summer and got to know it and felt bad when I couldn’t frequent my favorite spots as often as I would have liked to once school started. I encourage everyone from outside Baltimore to stay in the city for at least one summer.
I went to a Ravens game in the fall and many Orioles games. I went to the Poe House and Fort McHenry and hung out at the Peabody Library. I never went to the Aquarium.
I met quite a few Baltimore celebs, including Jay the Blue Jay (okay, a Hopkins celeb), the Natty Boh Mascot, Boog Powell at Camden Yards, John Waters at a book signing and then-Governor O’Malley when he came to talk at Hopkins. I was so happy to have seen such incredible speakers at Hopkins over the years and also at various venues in Baltimore. I had a column in the campus newspaper.
As of now, this is what I can think of. Maybe some of these bucket list experiences can be checked off in the next few weeks, but time is running out. I have to remember that I did the most with the time I had. I met a fantastic group of people and delved more into my passions. Thanks for the memories, Hopkins. On to the next adventure.
