Our Class of 2015 comes home to study, learn, live on campus in 31 days. We cannot wait! Faculty and Staff are begining to trickle back on campus, and while we’re gearing up here in Admissions to recruit the class of 2016 and beyond, we too are getting excited to see how 2015 will bond, create, and change our campus for the better.
I can remember the week leading up to move-in day eleven years ago very clearly and vividly in my head. One of the things that was most memorable was the mixed tape one of my high school classmates had made us as a graduation present. When I was packing, I was listening to it; when we were saying our “final” goodbyes, it was playing in our cars; and as my family piled into that very loaded, and very uncomfortable golden Chevy truck (which subsequently had the back end rust off a mere year later–a fact my father still likes to blame of my overwhelming amount of “stuff” we carried to VA!) it was what played in my headphone almost the entire way down. It was truly the soundtrack to my summer and those first few days of college.
While I know I may not be as “hip and with it” as I was in my youth, but I do know that music is incredibly powerful, and I wanted my students to have at least the start of a 2011 VA or Bust soundtrack. But mass producing mixed CD’s sounded like a lawsuit waiting to happen, so I figured out how to do the next best thing–create a playlist on iTunes.
My hope for my students is that in these next 31 days they don’t get so wrapped up in the going that they don’t take the time to appreciate where they are right now. Yes, great things do rest on the horizon we call college; however, you are on the precipice of something great, and life as you know it will never be the same. So go slow these next thirty one days, be kind to your parents, siblings, guardians, friends, dogs, don’t wish away the summer because soon you’ll have more homework than you’ll know what to do with! And most importantly, be kind to yourself–it’s ok to feel excited, or overwhelmed, or terrified, or sad, or any mix of those emotions.
You are on the precipice of something great, and the good news for you is you have an incredible community who will support you, and will want to get to know you in 31 days. We’re not going anywhere, and we’ll be here when you get here, I promise.
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In the meantime, jam on, Ladies! And if anyone out there has suggestions for awesome road-trippin’, first time going to college, etc etc songs they’d have on their playlist, then by all means–please share!!
Tags: college, first year, freshman year, iTunes, move in day, play list, Sweet Briar college
