Three years ago I wrote a letter to myself. It was an assignment given by the school to all the incoming first-years. I’m sure that the majority of the people my year totally ignored this assignment; nobody checked up on us so who could blame them. And it was sort of a lame assignment. I guess it was more of an exercise than an assignment.

I remember getting the same assignment as a high school first-year, which I did because we were forced to write them in class, but it was not a helpful experience because all I wrote about was how the authority was making us do this dumb assignment. Probably.

But when it came time to write a letter to myself as an incoming college first-year, I was totally on board. I wrote a motivational letter to myself, full of first-year energy, quoted some of my favourite bloggers, and shared the letter on my blog as well. Some parts of that letter I wrote three years ago were a little cringe-y, but maybe one day I’ll find those parts endearing.

It’s interesting to see how my attitude has changed over the years. Most obviously, my excitement and motivation has declined drastically. During my junior year, I was selective and stingy about where I put my effort, I was constantly complaining about how the liberal arts education wasn’t preparing me with practical skills for the real world, I didn’t see the point of doing what I was doing, and I was tired of the small college bubble that only felt like it was shrinking, tired of seeing all the same people in all the same places. I wanted to be done with academia but at the same time I wasn’t confident I’d be able to find a job.

And I know I’m not alone in this. In fact, I have a surprising number of friends graduating a semester early, each for their own reasons. I’m not gonna lie, it makes me a little nervous about my spring semester of senior year. But anyways, yeah… excitement and motivation has been low.

But recently I met up with a friend for coffee. She’s two years above me, so she’s been working in the real world for a full year now and is starting her second. There was a lot of catching up to do, and our conversation touched upon several topics, but especially our college experiences and our futures. After our conversation, where I was so full of doubt, I was now full of hope. So I wanted to tidy up my thoughts from that conversation in a letter to myself. It’s probably time for me to reflect on that letter I wrote three years ago anyway.

Ideally this blog post would have gone up right on the last day of my junior year of college, but here it is just in time before my senior year of college. Like in high school, junior year was my toughest year so far. Now I know why people study abroad during their junior year of college! Do I wish I studied abroad during my junior year of college too? Yes. But it’s not the end of the world. It would have been too stressful coming back and having to cram all the required courses for my double major. Anyways, I think I’ve made up for it with all the traveling I did this summer!