It’s been a little while since I have done this whole column-writing thing. So bear with me while I take a couple sentences to knock the rust off.
Some of you may remember me from last year. I was the sports editor and columnist – you know, the guy who delivered hard-hitting opinions about UC Davis athletics and never once mentioned the San Francisco Giants (until now, that is).
Well now I am a senior and I will be graduating in a little over a week. As such, this is most likely the last column I will ever write for The California Aggie (assuming I pass ANT 103).
It’s been a good four years here at UC Davis. I have biked to and from school virtually every day, eaten god knows how many meals in the dining commons and played too many intramural games to even count (yet, still without an IM champion t-shirt). I have even had the same roommate through all four years.
But before I graduate, leave UC Davis and head out into the real world, I would like to bestow upon you all my final words of wisdom. Considering my background in sports writing, it would only be appropriate that the theme of my last column is sports-related.
Thus, I will liken the culmination of my undergraduate experience – and all of yours for that matter – to the end of an era, a dynasty really.
Because that’s all that college really is anyways. It’s one chapter, one era in the long story of your life. But just like many sports dynasties such as the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys or UCLA Bruins men’s basketball came to an end at some point, so too does the college experience.
For me (and likely most of you), college was four years of pure domination, akin to what the Chicago Bulls put together in the ’90s. Aside from writing for The Aggie for four years – two of which as an editor – I had the opportunity to work internships, play a club sport, perform stand-up comedy, study abroad, research with a professor and lunch with prominent UC Davis figures like the chancellor. My time associated with UC Davis will culminate in one final quarter in Washington, D.C. this summer.
And with that, the dynasty will end. No more intramural sports, no more people watching out on the quad and no more Picnic Days (well, at least not as a student).
But unlike sports, the end of your college experience doesn’t have to be all bad. In sports, when a team’s reign ends, it fires its coach, releases its players and drifts to the bottom of the league for a couple years. However, for those of you planning to walk the walk in nine days, this will not be the case.
Even though this may be the end of an era, it is only the end of an era. It is up to you to start the next great dynasty in your life. Your domination over college and everything it had to offer will translate into whatever you choose to do next.
Whether you plan to travel the world, go to graduate, law or medical school or even get a job, your time at UC Davis will allow you to start the next great dynasty.
So whether you are distraught at the thought of graduating or extremely happy to be done with exams and papers, just know this – good or bad, your time at UC Davis will be etched in the story of your life forever. You may not be able to have it back, but you will know that the dynasty you have created over the past four (or maybe five) years will carry over as you start the next great dynasty.
MAX ROSENBLUM can’t be reached at any e-mail. Send your comments/complaints/praises to his replacement, Becky Peterson, at managing@theaggie.org. She might pass them on.
