Graphic by Saylor Hark

With graduation in less than two weeks, many seniors, including myself, find ourselves reflecting on the past four years at Colgate. A phrase that gets tossed around a lot here is that “Colgate is the best three years of your life,” and I would have to agree with that — to some extent. At a school where being a first-year is uniquely hard, Colgate definitely makes up for it in the following three years. 

After May 17, when we walk across the stage and pack up to move out, a pretty large chunk of the senior class will be moving to New York City, beginning the rest of their lives surrounded by their Colgate friends and peers. Even for those of us who are taking a different path than the classic Colgate to New York City pipeline, one thing remains true for a lot of us: Colgate has given us friendships that extend far beyond our small, isolated campus. Beyond that, Colgate has given us a lot of other things.

Don’t get me wrong, Colgate is by no means perfect, but I’d have to argue that it gets pretty close. A lot of the things that we take for granted in our day-to-day lives here are the things that we start to realize we will miss the most in a couple of weeks when we leave campus for good. 

We complain every winter about the weather, dodging patches of ice all over campus and trekking up the hill in blizzards because snow days are almost unheard of. Upstate New York winters never quite get easier. We complain about the distance from “civilization” and how little we have in Hamilton. We get annoyed about how far the airport is and how challenging it is to get there.

And yet, the calendar winding down leaves us with a constant reminder of the fact that we will never get to experience those things here, we start to reminisce about Willow Path after a snowstorm, the picturesque fields that surround us and the value of living in a small town like Hamilton. 

Colgate has not necessarily been the college experience that my 17-year-old self had expected, but I can tell you without a doubt that it’s the one I am glad I ended up with. I would be lying if I said I did not open the Common App a couple of times throughout my first year here. The decision to ultimately close that tab and lean into the Colgate experience is a decision that I constantly thank my past self for. As someone who expected to be at a big state school in some warm climate, it wasn’t exactly an easy decision to make. Still, the sentiment that Colgate is the best three years of your life does not exactly feel far-fetched to me. 

In the three years following our first year here, we get to experience so much more than we probably even thought Colgate had to offer. We move into nicer dorms and then, ultimately, some of us move off-campus. We get to really lean into the classes that actually interest us, we form lasting bonds with our friends and peers and we find new ways to make the most of this place every day. So, yes, Colgate might be an uphill battle in those first nine months, but sticking it out is worth it.

The past few years on one of the most beautiful campuses in the country, with the people I find myself surrounded by, is something that I wouldn’t trade for warmer weather, closer access to a major city or an additional few thousand undergraduate students. There is something about the way that Colgate students love college that I haven’t heard in stories told by high school friends and we are lucky to have that experience here. A lot of the reasons why we have such a tight-knit campus and school pride come from a lot of the things that we might find ourselves complaining about throughout our time here. 

So, if you’re in my position right now, gearing up for graduation — which is coming much too soon — I urge you to take a little longer walk to class, to take a walk around the golf course and enjoy the scenery and to reflect on what might end up being some of the best years of your life. As we all move on pretty soon, we have a lot to look forward to — a new apartment, job or city — but we also have a lot to be grateful for from this school. Before we know it, we won’t be college students anymore, and these things that we probably take for granted every day here will be some of our favorite memories. 

It’s not over yet, and the little time left is the time to appreciate and notice the little things. After all, those little things go a long way.