I’ve entered the final leg of my college career. I’m one month into the spring semester and it’s going too fast. It feels like just yesterday that I was graduating from high school in the midst of the pandemic. Yet, I know this can’t possibly be the case, as the very experiences that I list in this article have caused me to change and grow so much over the past four years. Which brings me to the point of this article. Here, I have cultivated a list of 75 things (in no particular order) that I’ve done and accomplished during my college career. Some things I’m proud of, others not so much. Some things I would recommend . . . others less so.
1. Go to college out of state and move away from home
2. Become best friends with your roommate
3. Do online schooling your freshman year
4. Join Loco Mag
5. Join Quiddity, Arcadia’s literary magazine
6. Learn how to crochet
6.1 Fill your apartment with crocheted dragons and other oddities
7. Take a plane trip on your own
8. Go rock climbing and be pretty bad at it
9. Tour Fonthill Castle and the Mercer Museum
10. Watch all the Indiana Jones movies for the first time
11. Rewatch The Office forty thousand times
12. Buy your first bottle of alcohol
12.1 Find out that Bahama Mama cocktails are the best
13. Go to Southern Germany for ten days
14. Take a summer semester abroad in London
14.1 Have a cough for the entire two months that you’re there
15. Be with your grandmother in the last months of her life
16. Cook and try out different recipes
17. Drink out of juice boxes
18. Go to Morris Arboretum
19. Go to Longwood Gardens
20. Take your roommates to Texas
21. Foster puppies on your school breaks
22. Go to Wegmans for the first time (scary)
23. Go to Trader Joe’s for the first time (even scarier)
24. Get your septum pierced and hide it from your parents
24.1 If said parents are reading this, this one’s a joke
25. Dress up as Inigo Montoya for Halloween
26. Watch Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time
27. Learn how to use a blow torch
28. Get your first tattoos
28.1 Get your first tattoo covered up
29. Take the SEPTA train for the first time
30. See the best movie ever in theaters (Cocaine Bear)
31. See the worst movie ever in theaters (Blue Beetle)
32. Have your roommate teach you how to ski
32.1 Get some really good bruises
33. Buy a bunch of fun socks
34. Pass your classes
35. Learn that you’ve been saying “ghoul” wrong
36. Make a quote wall
37. Teach your roommate about the wonderful ways of the air fryer
38. Get free meals at your mommom and poppop’s house
39. Learn that you love zucchini
40. Meet some really amazing people
41. Meet some really weird people
42. Cook a meal for your parents
43. Go to Chestertown, Maryland
44. Go on hikes
45. Take a ceramics class
46. Celebrate your 21st birthday with your twin brother
46.1 Cringe when you down a tequila shot
47. Get tattooed by said brother (who is a professional tattoo artist (no tequila was consumed at this time))
48. Try Georgian food
49. Try Japanese food
50. Try Greek food
50.1 Learn how to pronounce Gyro
51. Try a chimichanga
52. Try wine and hate it
53. Find a core group of friends
54. Learn to play pool
55. Point out every patch of moss that you pass
56. Play in snow for the first time in years
56.1 Build a snowman
57. Have your cousin take you to a bar for the first time
58. Go to Ott’s Exotic Plants
58.1 Acquire a bunch of plants that you don’t need
59. Go ice skating and decide you never need to do it again
60. Have high tea at Tilly Mint’s
61. Go to the Philadelphia Zoo
61.1 The reptile room (the thing you were most excited about) is closed
61.2 When you go to the London Zoo, their reptile house is also closed!
62. Get your first pair of suspenders
63. Go to a formal dance because you didn’t get to go to prom during high school
64. Take a weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland
64.1 This is where you fall in love with Bahama Mama’s
65. Write and illustrate a children’s book
66. Visit Briar Bush Nature Center
66.1 Pet a possum
67. Go to Reading Terminal Market
68. Take a day trip to New York
69. Get vanilla flavored lube from the condom fairy
69.1 Tape it to the quote wall
69.2 Be much too afraid to ever actually try it
70. Visit the Franklin Institute
71. Watch a color guard competition
72. Go to the Renaissance Fair
72.1 Have it rain all day
72.2 When you’re driving back, have the GPS take you an hour in the wrong direction
73. Ask to pet every dog you cross paths with
74. Learn just how amazing Wawa is
You might think I’ve lied to you here as this is in fact not a list of 75 things, but a measly 74. This is not because I couldn’t come up with another (how dare you insinuate such a preposterous thing), instead I would like to leave my last spot open. I’m leaving my number 75 open to the opportunities that I will have during my final semester. There are so many things I would like to add to this list that just haven’t happened yet. Graduation will be in May along with all the graduation parties and weekend trips. My completed creative writing manuscript will be due in April which I will then present in front of a large group of people. March is filled to the brim with many of my friends’ birthdays, a spring break trip to Texas, getting a mushroom tattoo with one of my good friends, and so much more. There’s still so much I want to do and I’m dreading the fact that I might not get to do all of it. The end of my college experience is fast approaching and I’m not sure what lies beyond it. For right now I just want to focus on number 75 because 75 isn’t missing, it’s there, it just hasn’t happened yet.
Featured Image by Sydney Howse
