A letter to incoming seniors

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

(6/2024) Dear Mount Class of 2025:

I write this to you a week after my graduation. It feels surreal to say that I am officially a Mount St. Mary’s University Alumna, that I am no longer a college student; that the past four years have come to an end, an end I never imagined, but simultaneously one that I have been awaiting. The irony is illuminating.

The week immediately following my graduation, I traveled to one of my favorite places: Shenandoah National Park. I planned a graduation trip that doubled as a getaway, and I spent the next five days with little to no cell service. In fact, I deleted Instagram and Facebook simply to disconnect. I filled my days with gorgeous waterfall hikes, wineries in the middle of nowhere, and plenty of mountains. It was a wonderful way to celebrate graduation, and because I had no social media to check, it allowed me to truly reflect on the last four years.

Sylvia Plath says it best in her novel, The Bell Jar. As protagonist Esther Greenwood spends a college summer in New York City, she says: "All the little successes I’d totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue."

It’s true. It’s so overwhelmingly true, how everything you once obsessed over simply fizzles away in the shadows of the real world.

I spent years maintaining a 4.0 in college (only to lose it to an A-). I stressed over publishing my creative writing, I cried over essays, and I celebrated academic awards for a moment before marking them on my resume and never thinking of them again. College in general creates a rigorous, competitive culture that rarely prepares you for the real world. In fact, you must go out of your way to prepare yourself for these experiences.

It wasn’t until I flew to London, wrote for the News-Journal, or began student teaching that I truly understood how the real world worked—how to travel, how to communicate with others, how to have a job. When I reflect on my favorite semester of college, I think about the four months I spent with my middle school students: waking up before the sun, teaching lessons, and building a life beyond college. I cherished my student teaching semester more than any other.

This is not to say that the academic experience in college doesn’t matter. In fact, the Mount’s curriculum allowed me to grow as a critical and creative thinker. I have loved my professors, my courses, and my learning.

I just want any incoming senior to know that this time you have at the Mount, or at any college, is precious. You’ll graduate, and you’ll get the job, so long as you work hard. Living with your best friends, going to Ott’s on a Saturday night, driving to Gettysburg in the middle of the week for a coffee—it goes away. Remember these moments, and keep them close to your heart, for these are the memories that last longer than any exam or essay will.

But I also want incoming seniors to know that the year before you graduate is a fragile time. It’s filled with choices and questions, late nights of job-searching and conversations you frankly don’t want to have. It doesn’t matter if you decide to start working, or go to graduate school, or take a gap year: you will be judged.

My decision to begin teaching this fall was one that raised eyebrows. I heard the following from several people: "I taught for five years, and it was terrible. I couldn’t do it." Or "You’re too nice to be a teacher." Or "My husband teaches, and he hates it." I also heard from professors that they imagined me flourishing elsewhere. It was rare that I received an honest congratulations for my decision to teach, and it was often that I cried over my ability to follow an ages-old dream.

And when you are judged, you tend to compare. I admit to spending countless nights on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, scrolling through accounts of people I hardly know, thinking to myself, "If I had just done this…"

College is a breeding ground for comparison. I promise that when you step out into the world, you’ll find yourself so far from your fellow graduates. Your peers, your professors—they all become people, normal people. You have the choice to constantly worry about what they’re thinking and doing, or you can grow excited about your own unique, fruitful journey.

Spending a week in the mountains was the perfect post-graduation trip. My mind is clearer, my thoughts collected. While I am eternally thankful for the Mount, I am also relieved that my college chapter is complete. Senior year is difficult. You spend years building a life here, only to leave. You think your first job will be your only job, or you panic over having no job, and the eyes of every peer and professor are on you, watching.

As one of the newest graduates of Mount St. Mary’s University, I urge you to discern what matters most to you, and then follow this with all your heart. Do not let anyone irrelevant weigh his or her opinion. Apply to all the jobs, then pray. Delete social media; learn that you’re peering through rose-painted glass. Stay up all night with your roommates. Drive down Annandale Road with open windows on a starry night. Pop champagne in front of Bradley Hall. Frame your degree, because you deserve it, and it was worth everything you endured. Go on that post-grad trip. But most importantly: Thank everyone who led you to this moment.

And congratulations, from me, for getting to this point. I know how tough it feels, but I also know how rewarding it is. I want to especially recognize Assistant Managing Editor Dolores Hans for embarking on her senior year. By the end of summer, she will begin leading the News-Journal, and I can’t think of anyone more worthy for the role. Like all incoming seniors, Dori is blazing her own path, and I am so excited for her journey; I know she’ll live significantly in her unique, amazing way, just like all Mount graduates do.

Read other articles by Claire Doll