Embracing change

Angela Guiao
MSMU Class of 2021

(8/2019) A new year, a new experience, a new change. As I enter my junior year, I can’t help but look back at my transformation over my time here at the Mount. And, I must say, it is rather grand.

I remember starting out when I was a shy, scared Freshman. I still remember wandering the halls of the AC, trying to find my class despite already being ten minutes late, just because I was too scared to ask someone how to get there. I remember hiding away in my room on family weekend or bonfires because I felt like I was too introverted compared to the other people in my grade.

By the time I began sophomore year, I found I had emerged from my shell. I discovered my love for volunteering, and I made close and supportive friends. I realized how meaningful and fun it is to attend events and feel like a part of something. I finally felt like I was in college. I had gained this sense of freedom and independence that I couldn’t achieve when I lived at home or when I was a freshman.

I started to feel like I could actually make a difference. I understood how my hard work and perseverance could help make a change in the world. And I think that is the importance of college. I think we need to feel this way so that our world can become a better, more inclusive, more loving place.

This semester, as I continue my education and enter my third year here at the Mount, I realized something else. Looking back, I can see how much I have grown. Some of the best moments of my life have already happened here at the Mount, but this year, I understand that I am part of something bigger. I have control of my own life. My own choices that I make are what defines my future.

I am now officially closer to graduating than I am to the start of my college life. And if I am being completely honest, I’m scared. I now have to start thinking about the future. I am starting to wonder about what is going to happen to me when I graduation. What will come next? Will it all be worth it?

I find myself plagued with the questions I believe are on the minds of all my other fellow juniors: Will I be able to get a job? Will I be able to make enough money to pay off my loans? What is going to happen to me when the day comes where I leave the Mount?

Will it all be worth it?

As everything changes this new school year, I am going to keep one thing in my mind: I can do anything I set my mind to. I think a lot of us may need to be reminded that. We are told this as children, but we tend to forget this as we grow older. I think all people crave the same basic necessities. We crave comfort, we crave companionship, and we crave an end goal. We like to feel like we are doing things for a reason, like we have a purpose. And that is what I am going to focus on this year.

I may be getting older, and I may be closer to the day where I’ll have to fend for myself in the real world. But I know that all I have to do is remember why I did this. What is my end goal?

I want to graduate. I want to make my mother proud. I want to make a difference. I want to work at a job I love. I want to make a goal and achieve it. I want to be comfortable enough so that I can focus on things that matter. Overall, alike everyone else, I want to live a life that makes me happy.

This year, I realized that I am in charge of my own life. I am in control, and it is my decisions that will determine my success or failure. I realized how much I have changed. How I have transformed from the small, dependent, scared freshman to this strong, determined, motivated junior.

I learned that I need to work on embracing change. I need to learn to take things and just go with it. I can worry and stress and wonder all day every day but doing so is just not a productive use of my time.

This year as I grow up, as I continue to mature, and as I learn how to prioritize the things which are most important, I understood the importance of learning from your past and working towards becoming a better version of yourself.

We can do anything we want to do. Isn’t that what college is about? We can be whatever we want to be. I feel like we forget about this. This is the foundation of university life. The ideal may disappear in the bustle of school work and tests. It may get lost in the late nights with friends and lunches alone in the library.

But we went to college because we believed that we could make a change. We believed that we could make a difference. We believed we could challenge ourselves. We believed that we could make ourselves a better future. We understood the importance of hoping and believing that we actually play a part in our life. And this year, I want to go back to believing. I want to feel the same sense of excitement and possibilities that I felt when I was freshman. And I want to do so with the complete understanding that anything is still possible.

We may grow older, and we may find ourselves face-to-face with the realities of life, but we should never forget the feeling of hope and blind enthusiasm for life and our possibilities. Let us embrace change together. Let us grow, learn, and continue to believe.

Read other articles by Angela Tongohan