Lesli Marchese, Campus Carrier managing editor
I am so excited to be yet another person to welcome you to your new home for the next four years. As a freshman, you are going to be given advice from a hundred different sources about a thousand different things. Everything from self-care, to time management, to class scheduling and the best places to eat downtown. I know it’s a lot to handle, but the Berry community wants the best for you: in success and happiness.
So, I’m going to give you one more piece of advice – one that is near and dear to my heart.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of things to do around Berry and Rome, not to mention places you can drive for day trips. Start early and make yourself a “Berry Bucket List” – I know people joke about the idea of a bucket list all the time, but making a legitimate one will ensure that, on graduation day, you don’t look back wishing you had more time. You can add everything from making the Dean’s list, to hiking to the House of Dreams, to simply spending a memorable day with friends – not everything on your list has to be a big, stellar achievement. You can continue to add new ideas to your list. You shouldn’t have it completely finished the first time around.
My list has taken me all over Berry’s campus and has pushed me to meet a lot of new people. I’ve made goals to meet a certain number of people in my major and to sit down with people I’ve never met in Dhall – both of which have kicked off some pretty amazing friendships. The students, faculty and staff at Berry are almost unusually friendly, and many people are happy to stand and chat with a new face. Every friend you’ve made was once someone you didn’t know.
I wanted to try classes and jobs outside of my major – and now I can proudly say I’m the managing editor of our campus newspaper (even though I’m a science major) and I can reflect on the experience I’ve gained from taking classes like yoga and throwing clay.
I have 262 days left at Berry, and I am thrilled to report that I can look back at many days of sunshine and storms, of interesting conversation and roadtrips, of meaningful discussion with professors and snorting laughter with friends. My time here is coming to an end, but yours is just beginning.
You have roughly 1,361 days left at Berry as an undergraduate student, so make the most of them. It may seem like a lot of time now, but it will go by quickly. There will be times when you wish you had a fast-forward or a rewind button, to skip over long days or give yourself an extra chance to study for that big test. But the moments when you wish time would stand still are what will stick with you, long after you graduate – days when you’re lazing in a hammock, watching fluffy balls of cotton float across the sky, or nights surrounded by good friends, watching the stars twinkle. So start building your bucket list and find a safe place to keep it. I hope that your time here at Berry is amazing and that four years from now, as you walk across the stage, you can check the final item off your list.