Last week, as one of my classes was wrapping things up for the last day, a student who has finished all his coursework noted that I was his professor for the first and last classes of his undergraduate career. He blogged his thoughts, and e-mailed the old student roster, inviting his former classmates to share his reflections.
I was so overwhelmed that first semester. I had to write papers I’d never written in my life, do difficult research, critically analyze works of literature, write newspaper articles, and many other things. And I honestly don’t think I would have made it, if it weren’t for those strangers sitting in that scary classroom with me. We made it together. We lost a few along the way, some changed majors, some transferred schools, but we all shared that first college experience together (except for the Katies, they were seniors). And when someday, we are sitting at our child’s high school graduation party, and he walks up to us and says, “Dad, what was it like to start college?,” we will all be able to look back on that first class with Dr. Jerz, and a group of frightened freshmen and say, “you’ll be just fine.” —Andy LoNigro
Several students from that class have already commented on Andy’s post, including one who transferred to
another school, some who are still in the major, and one who had
already gotten her MA and was back on campus teaching freshman comp.
One imagines the Canterbury pilgrims might have felt the same way, with their destination in sight, as they looked back on the journey they made, and the tales they shared.