Opinion: Time and change

Samantha Hollingshead
Tue, 26 Apr 2016 01:57:14 +0000
Opinion, commencement, featured, graduation, ohio state, osu

Credit: Samantha Hollingshead | Photo Editor

As a graduating senior, a lot of things go through your head the last few weeks.

Most of them are of worries of passing your classes or finding a job.

Some surprise you, though. Lately when I walk across campus, I find myself wanting to cry.

I think, “What if this is my last time in Thompson Library, or what if this is my last time at Mirror Lake?” When I walk across campus, I try and take as many deep and savory breaths that I can. Breathing in those last few moments of being a Buckeye.

My first breath of air was on this campus. I was born at OSU’s medical center on spring game day. My mom used to tell me the story of how my dad was holding me by the window looking over the stadium, watching the game. Even only a day old I was already a fan.

At 18, as much as I loved OSU, I thought I needed to get farther away, that somehow that would teach me to grow up.

I was wrong.

After only a semester I moved back home and worked my way back to OSU.

Four years later and now look at me. On May 8, I will be graduating with honors from the place that has changed me for the better.

When I first came to OSU, I didn’t have a lot of friends, I was scared, afraid of the road ahead. I worried about the huge campus, if it would seem too big for me, too much to handle.

While at times it felt that it was, I find myself here at the finish line a completely different person than the girl who started the race.

I have learned things I never thought could even be taught both in the classroom and within myself.

In a few weeks, I will no longer be a student and that scares me a little. Don’t get me wrong — I won’t miss the schoolwork, but I will miss everything else.

I’ll miss Oval beach in April, when the weather finally warms. I’ll miss Saturday tailgates in the fall. I’ll miss the feeling of knowing you can do anything, be anyone and that the world outside can wait just a little longer.

Sometimes I worry the world is too big, too much for me to handle. Then I think about OSU. More than 50,000 students, miles of campus, countless wonders and yet, I conquered it all.

That’s my next plan — to conquer the world. I don’t mean rule over all of humanity. I want to do in the world what I have done here.

I want to set goals and reach them. I want to push boundaries and test limits. I want to explore, go places I once thought were too far or too much. I want to make every day a new opportunity, and when it all seems too big, I want to be bigger.

I took my first breath here, my first big step into life. Now, because of OSU I’m ready to take another. Once a Buckeye, always a Buckeye, because…

Time and change will surely show, how firm thy friendship … O-H

Samantha Hollingshead

Photo Editor

Journalism, Class of 2016