Here’s how it started: At 2:19 p.m. on Tuesday, the University Scheduling Office sent out an email explaining that the Resource 25 Scheduling request was back online. Cool. We didn’t even know the University had a Scheduling Office. But what did this email even mean?

We really didn’t have any idea, and it didn’t seem like anyone else did either. The Brown University Scheduling Office thanked us for our patience, but it definitely spoke too soon.

A simple reply-all with the word “Test” started a flurry of individuals replying all, asking such questions as “Why am I getting these emails?”; “??? Why Brown emails ???”; “what, is Brown University sharing my information with the Fed too???”; and, perhaps the most profound question of them all, “???”

It was obvious that people were confused. One provided an astute suggestion:

If only it were that simple. Those who received the email made assertions about their respective ages and places in life to emphasize why they were the least deserving of such an email.

Cool. Neither are we.

Some requested (very nicely!) to be taken off the ListServ, but were unsuccessful. Their requests were heard by thousands of people instead:

Alas, as disgruntled individuals tried to stress their case, the reply-alls begot more reply-alls…

…and more reply-alls that just didn’t make any sense…

(We’re glad that this bro used this forum to voice his opinion.)

…which begged the question: How many reply-alls will it take to stop the reply-alls?

Finally, Professor James Morone of City Politics (POLS0220) fame brilliantly and forcefully sent out a separate email to everyone on the ListServ, saying:

Yeah, seriously. You can just smell the authority in that one email: The all-caps subject stood apart in your inbox, and Morone’s “Come on everyone” may have single-handedly stopped the tidal wave of emails. He’s our hero.

The emails stopped rolling in around 2:35 p.m., which was right around the time Professor Morone’s stern words reached our inboxes. The ListServ was disabled before any students could think of how to capitalize on the situation: professors, students, and alumni all connected in one email chain. Had we acted quickly enough, we probably could have attached resumes and cover letters… or even this picture of Michael Bolton [Ed. 1: Why Michael Bolton?. Ed. 2: Because... Michael Bolton. And because someone at NYU attached this picture of Nicolas Cage].

Finally, at 4:46 p.m., an email went out to the Brown community that explained all that had occurred earlier in the afternoon and gave everyone involved a sense of closure:

We accept your apology, CIS. At least BSA will be happy that we can’t blame them for this shit show. We have to admit… we kind of enjoyed this. Here’s to finding a nice Italian restaurant in the Virginia area that will also seat a cat and two birds.

It’s that time of year again: The class of 2013 has made it through the other side of the Gates, and our once-distant summer plans are… well, pretty damn close. Whether you returned home or lived out the last few weeks of May at Camp Brown, we’ve been able to shelve our stress, reflect on the year, and look forward to what the next year has in store for us. In the meantime, while we business-casually slog through our summers, BlogDH may not be able to provide you with the same amount time-wasters as per usual to help you procrastinate at your summer job (we need to look good, too!). But don’t go too far—we will post periodically throughout the summer to satisfy all your cravings for life in Brunonia and Lil’ Rhody.

We offer heartfelt congratulations to all of the graduating seniors on our staff, and to our founder, editor-in-chief emeritus and “Chairman of the Board” Matt Klimerman ’13. Matt was instrumental in bringing the site from concept to launch in its early stages back in 2009 and has worked thanklessly over his years at Brown to invigorate BlogDH and elevate it to the level it’s currently at today. BlogDH’s characteristic creative energy is a product of his constant innovation in content, design (e.g. this picture of Dean Bova punching an exit sign), and strategy. While we’re sad to see the last members of our founding generation leave the Hill for more professional pursuits, we’ve got our succession plans in order and are ready to keep bringin’ it day in and day out.

A new semester brings a new editorial lineup. While Meredith Bilski ’14 will stay on as editor-in-chief, Sixth Man and Brown men’s soccer groupie David Oyer ’16 shall take over the managing editor position as BlogDH’s current managing editor Will Janover ’15 goes abroad. Similarly, as BlogDH’s token foodie and deputy managing editor Georgia Tollin ’15 goes abroad, Ana Colón ’14 and Charlotte Bilski ’16 will join master Vine-r and cover photo analyst Connor McGuigan ’15 in the ranks of deputy managing editors. Ana will work her editorial magic to ensure that Blue Ivy Carter considers enrolling at Brown early (read: this year), while Charlotte, a Neopets enthusiast, will likely revive yet another old school online time-wasting phenomenon (we’re putting our money on Icy Tower). Astronaut Jason Hu ’15 will continue to kick ass, take names, and go to space in his role as creative director, and we couldn’t be happier to announce that our favourite ex-pat Deena Butt ’16 will serve as our first-ever director of writer outreach.

If you’ve been following us closely, you’ll know we had a lot of fun this year: In addition to highlighting cool students, professors, alums, and events, and giving you the lowdown on all things Brown, we introduced our favorite game BergeMash, launched Brown University Compliments, created a Cards Against Humanity Brown expansion pack, and captured various Humans of Brown University on camera. We brought you the 12 days of Spring Weekend, April Fool’s Day fun with BlogDailySophomoreLiteraryArtsConcentrator, and tons of infographics, and we joined Instagram and Vine. Of course, the list doesn’t stop there, but one thing’s for sure: there would be no BlogDailyHerald without our dedicated and talented staff members who are all listed on our masthead. There’s also no way that we could ever thank Neal Poole ’13 and Joe Stein ’16 enough for all that they do for BlogDailyHerald—these two computer geniuses work around the clock to make sure that the gnomes that work inside our site don’t get drunk and break the Internet.

As we look ahead to fall 2013, we can’t stress enough how invaluable your feedback is. Tweet at us, shoot us an email (blog[at]browndailyherald[dot]com), or write to us on Facebook. Call us, maybe. Drop a line to let us know what you like/don’t like about BlogDH and/or what you would like to see more of in the semesters to come. On a similar note, if you would like to be a part of BlogDH in the semesters to come, please let us know. We will do a formal recruitment process at the beginning of next semester, but if you’re interested, shoot us an email, and we’ll make sure we get an application to you.

It’s really incredible how much this publication has grown in the past year, not to mention in this past semester alone. BlogDailyHerald would be nothing without the unwavering support it receives from the members greater Brown community. It’s because of your consistent readership and engagement that we’re able to be a collective voice of the student body and a hub for relevant campus conversation, and for that we are truly grateful. As we break for summer, we shouldn’t forget how special our College Hill community is… or just how great Berge looks in a tie.

Have a great summer. You all deserve it.

<3

All our love,
BlogDailyHerald

Congratulations to the class of 2013! We will miss you all and can’t wait to see the amazing things you will accomplish. Here is one last graduation present for you all (grad students included!): we’ve got the photos of you walking out of the Van Wickle Gates that you know your mom is dying to see. As Brown graduates, you’ve got this figured out by now—like our page, tag your friends here, and enjoy! Congrats!

An AT&T New Media Fellow, Caroline Sagalchik ’13 spent this past winter and semester creating a documentary called “Of Sand and Fur” (above… and you should definitely check it out) about the Russian-Jewish immigrant community Brigthon Beach, Brooklyn. Brighton Beach is one of the largest Russian-speaking immigrant communities in the country. Through the fellowship, Caroline was able to interact with the community in Brighton Beach and reach her audience by engaging with the topic of assimilation.

The documentary was recently featured on the Watson Institute’s website.

The project was especially meaningful because she had grown up with exposure to Russian and American cultures. Here’s a bit on the experience in Caroline’s words, after the jump.

I came into my project thinking I would be able to answer one set of questions, but I soon realized that that would not be possible. So I let myself proceed without a concrete lens, open to any potential stories. I walked around the neighborhood for many days filming everything around me. Sometimes it was met with hostility. A girl with a nose piercing, walking around outside without a hat, scarf, and gloves in the winter, but instead with a camera, garnered disapproving attention from some of the older generation who make up the majority of the community. At one point I was sitting on the front-steps of an abandoned building and a woman came up to me quite flustered, and said to me in Russian, “It pains me to look at you sitting there on that cold step. You should know better than to do that. You’re freezing your ovaries!” In that sense the image of me easily making connections with people on the street did not play out as planned. I did meet one of the people I interviewed for the film this way, but most of the people I talked to already knew me or my family, which actually allowed for more candid conversations from the get-go. I was able to get a nuanced picture of the community, a strange pocket of America where two cultures exist at odds and in tandem. As I personally grew up with those two cultures, the opportunity to document this unique region was a very meaningful experience.

Then + Now

I have this notion that our actions fall in one of two categories: they’re either rooted in the actions of “love” or “work.”[1] Think of your daily routine: you study in the library to work; you relax with your friends because you love them. It seems pretty basic now, but over time it gets a little more complicated. Love and work may start to compete with each other: tribulations of long distance relationships or the decision to go on vacation or finish a business project occur because of the ongoing tension between love and work.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that Brown is a place where love and work can flourish in harmony. It took me a long time to realize this.

The first two years of college, I wanted to be Mr. Social, and I definitely succeeded. I joined a bunch of clubs and made a lot of friends. I always had somewhere to be and someone to see, but I was doing pretty much everything to distract me from working. I didn’t take work seriously. And while I was in my various clubs, I didn’t make much of each experience. I felt like I was there only to meet new people, regardless of the club’s mission. I actually goofed off in and got kicked out of some clubs. Sure, I was embarrassed, but I felt that I was on the right path towards being happy. As long as I had people to whom I could say ‘sup on Thayer and with whom I could get lunch at the Ratty, I was okay.

Then I hit this lull where I didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything here. I was a B student, and I wasn’t really learning much. Furthermore, I didn’t feel like I was making authentic friends. I knew a lot of people, but it felt more like they were extras in the movie of my life. I thought that I wasn’t making deep friendships or, as I thought about it, people to invite to a wedding.

The biggest butterfly effect/turning point of my academic career occurred during the first semester of my junior year. While registering for courses, I accidentally set this really easy class as S/NC when I meant to do so for a harder class. Rather than maintain my usual work ethic, which would have put me in jeopardy of possibly failing the harder class, I changed my routine and tried to study for four hours a day, every day. It was from this experience that I started to become invested in what I was studying. The more I learned, the more I felt like I had something worth saying to people. I always had passions—The Simpsons, The Grateful Dead, my shitty sports teams—but for the first time in my life, I developed academic passions: film, social psychology, psychoanalytic theory, art history. As I became more excited about these topics, I was able to combine work and love.

For me, the best example of combining love and work was the Open Curriculum, specifically the GISP program. I created a GISP on Freud and other psychodynamic theorists and I was able to find the students who had the academic interests as I did. During the semester, there were students who attended our class sans course credit, and we continually received emails from those interested in taking the course the next year. There’s this indescribable excitement when I find people with the same academic passions. My biggest piece of advice is to create a GISP based on a topic you love. It will open your eyes to new ways of learning, excitement, and happiness.

I’ve learned some sad truths in the past years. Not everyone enjoys his/her concentration. Not everyone learns a lot from his/her concentration. I’ve interacted with people who just never want to talk about what they’re learning. I love finding people who want to teach you about what they’re studying, or talk to you about the clubs that they’re participating in. I’ve also enjoyed having mind- and attitude-altering conversations concerning taboo topics like religion, God, love, etc. If you love to learn, it no longer becomes work.

During my time at Brown, I felt like I was able to do it all. I won First Pick Video Competition. I went to beer fests, naked parties, and secret bakeries. And if you were wondering which kid asked James Franco to smoke pot at the 2011 Ivy Film Festival—hi.

I also learned never to take good timing for granted. The Boston Bruins won their first Stanley Cup in 39 years, and I got to cover and interview some of their players for WBRU. My closest friends were on my same freshman hall.  This year, I ended up next to some god-sent neighbors. I had Fiery Cushman as a teacher. These highlights of my Brown career were sheer luck.

Finally, I’d like to address the students out there who wanted but did not experience a college relationship. The college relationship is the only thing with significant value that I didn’t achieve at Brown. Maybe a few years back, I was too immature for one, which made me a little blind to those who were interested. Perhaps the two circles of a Venn diagram containing “people who I like” and “people who like me” never overlapped. That being said, I look back at not having the college relationship and see that this gap in this “resume of life” isn’t too painful: what a girlfriend at Brown represented, for me, was someone who embodied the beauty that I see within Brown. The fact that I really wanted this single consistent person to share Brown with means that Brown is worth sharing. The idea of a romantic partner is someone who could share in my friends’ laughter and quirkiness, to listen to our brilliant musicians, be entertained by our comedians, and marvel at all the incredible activities that our student body puts on. We can share the phenomenal lectures, Hillel, Nelson Center, Spring Weekend, and other things that exemplify the best parts of Brown. My personal belief is that you must love yourself and your friends before you truly love a romantic partner. [2] Maybe this theory resonates with seniors who never had a college relationship, maybe it doesn’t. The point is that we might have wanted something without realizing why we wanted it. When we step back and realize the reasons, we may be able to smile.

I feel very blessed to have achieved what I have achieved. I have friends whom I love—not just for who they are now, but also for who they are becoming. I thank those friends who encouraged both my serious side and my goofy side. Ultimately, I was able to become the nerd I always wanted to be, to enjoy my work so that it didn’t feel like work.

My wish for all my fellow seniors is that you find love—not just in your friends, partners, and children, but also in your careers, and in pursuit of improving the world around you.

Thank you for reading this and being present during my journey. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Ah, Cards Against Humanity. The epic drunk-and-bored game of the early 21st century.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, here are the rules:

• Most of the cards are white and are nouns.
• The others are black and are questions or fill-in-the-blank types.
• Each turn, one player pulls a random black card.
• Then the other players put down a white card they think is funniest when paired with the aforementioned black card.
• That original player (who pulled the black card) picks his or her favorite pairing.
• The person who played that white card gets a point.

It’s Apples to Apples, but horribly and hilariously offensive. I called alum and co-creator of CAH Ben Hantoot ’09 to get his blessing for a Brown University expansion pack. He said it was chill. He was on his Bluetooth, driving what was probably a really nice car, what with all the big money to be made in board games these days. We had a funny conversation about smoking weed on Governor Street and the difference between Canadians’ and Americans’ card preferences, which you can read in Post- Magazine HERE. (I’m not going to pull a Jonah Lehrer and write the same article for two publications, even though I am not Jonah Lehrer and no one would care if I did.) All I can say is that I’m proud to attend the same school [wipes away single tear] as this modern genius once did. After Binder, let’s give Hantoot an honorary degree.

So here it is: the Brown University Expansion Pack. We hope you’ll mix them in with the original game, which you can download free on the Cards Against Humanity website. The card “Controversial Herald opinion articles” deserves to play in the big leagues. I, for one, will be at the GCB with these bad boys if you wanna hang out. Take a look after the jump.

As we come to the end of another glorious season of Brown Athletics, it’s important to take a second to sit back and think about all the wonderful moments we’ve spent watching Brown teams succeed on and off the field this year. Let’s dash through season recaps for every one of our 37 varsity sports:

Baseball: A 7-33 finish, including 3-17 in Ivy League play, marks a successful and unprecedented effort by the baseball team to win even fewer games than last year’s nine. They did push #2 LSU to the wire in a narrow 4-3 walk-off loss, though, so that’s something.

Basketball (Men’s): A 7-7 Ivy League record was a big improvement on last year and good for a tie for third. Memorable wins included a comeback over rival Providence and eliminating Princeton from league title contention with a beatdown in the season finale. Sean McGonagill ’14 was named first-team All-Ivy; Cedric Kuakumensah ’16 was name Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. Show the fuck up to their games next year, please.

Basketball (Women’s): 3-11 Ivy and 9-19 overall records were nothing to write home about, but women’s basketball alum Lindsey Gottlieb ’99 coached Cal to the Women’s Final Four, which is pretty damn cool.

Crew (Men’s): Hard to figure out, since apparently men’s rowing isn’t an NCAA sport but is still varsity (?). I don’t know. Anyway, Brown has had another great season, losing only to No. 1 Washington and Ivy rival Harvard. (I think. Crew results are really hard to understand.) The year will conclude with Ivy and National championships in late May/early June.

Crew (Women’s): The NCAA sponsors women’s rowing, so this one is easier to figure out. Brown is ranked 12th and fresh off an Eastern Sprints victory heading into Ivy and National championships in late May/early June. Sounds promising.

Cross Country (Men’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, but didn’t qualify for nationals after finishing 11th at Northeast Regionals.

Cross Country (Women’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, and finished 8th at Northeast Regionals. Standout Margaret Connelly ’14 placed 7th to qualify for Nationals, where she finished 130th out of 253 runners.

Equestrian: The team placed third at Ivies and sent three riders to Nationals. Honestly, the results of this shit are totally indecipherable, but I can report with some certainty that no one from Brown won the national championship. Still, it sounds like they did pretty well.

Fencing (Men’s): The men’s fencers valiantly swordfought their way to 10th in NCAA.

Fencing (Women’s): Women’s fencing finished 4th in the Ivy League Fencing Round Robin Tournament.

Field Hockey: 6-11 overall, 1-6 in the Ivy League… but the win was over Cornell, so I think I’ll take it. Goalie Shannon McSweeney ’15 was written up in the Boston Globe, which is also cool.

Football: Da Bears fought their way to three straight wins at season’s end to finish 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the Ivy League—identical records to 2011. In other news, did you know that Brown football alum Sean Morey ’98 won a Super Bowl ring with the 2005 Steelers? Boom. You learn something new every day.

Golf (Men’s): Secured a 7th place finish at the Ivy championships, a step up from last year’s 8th place. Have you ever wondered where they play? I have. I have wondered that. You know, on account of our not having a golf course and all.

Golf (Women’s): Finished 6th at the Ivy championships. My concerns about where the golf team plays apply here as well.

Gymnastics: The team came in 4th at USAG Collegiate National Championships, which turns out not to be the NCAA championships but whatever. More fun facts: Alicia Sacramone, from the 2008 Olympic team, competed for Brown in 2006 before forfeiting her amateur status to, you know, be an Olympian. She didn’t graduate, though–it “wasn’t the best atmosphere for [her]…maybe a little too liberal.” Oh well in that case, let me mention how she COST THE U.S. THE GOLD MEDAL. Yeah. Enjoy your online Harvard classes, Alicia.

Hockey (Men’s): Men’s hockey made an unprecedented Cinderella run to the ECAC championship game (including a 4-0 victory over #1 Quinnipiac) fueled by goalie Anthony Borelli ’13 and goal-scoring machine Matt Lorito ’15. They also beat eventual national champion Yale 1-0 at home during the regular season. No big deal.

Hockey (Women’s): A rough 6-20-1 record. Looking for silver linings here, but not finding many.

Indoor Track & Field (Men’s): So I just found out we don’t really have 37 teams. We have 35, and then we split track and field into “indoor” and “outdoor.” I will not dignify such antics with separate write-ups.

Indoor Track & Field (Women’s): See “Track & Field, Indoor Men’s.”

Lacrosse (Men’s): Men’s lax (officially, “laxxxxxxx”) capped its 8-6 season with an 8-7 victory over in-state rival Bryant and a three-overtime win over Dartmouth. Laxxxxxxx.

Lacrosse (Women’s): Women’s laxxxxxxx was 2-5 Ivy but 9-6 overall. Plus, Bre Hudgins ’14 was named first-team all-Ivy. Even more fun facts: lacrosse is the only Brown athletics program whose men’s (Lars Tiffany ’90) and women’s (Keely McDonald ’00) coaches are both alums. Sorry, that fact wasn’t too fun.

Outdoor Track & Field (Men’s): Track and field results are pretty cryptic, so I’ll just take it from my sources on the team that they improved a lot over the course of the year, and that their 3rd-place finish at Ivies really counts as 1st-place because Cornell and Princeton are unbeatable. Impressively, John Spooney ’14 claimed his third straight 100m Ivy title, becoming the fourth person ever to three-peat. Call him Usain.

Outdoor Track & Field (Women’s): The women finished sixth at Ivies, which maybe also counts as first? I will consult my sources. Victoria Buhr ’14 won the Ivy discus title; Bruno also grabbed third and fourth place in the event. DISCUS DYNASTY.

Skiing: Our women skiers (no men’s skiing for Bruno anymore) had an undefeated regular season, took their second straight Eastern regional title, and finished sixth in the country. Whoa. Who knew? We have to start getting cheering squads out to rural Vermont or wherever they race.

Soccer (Men’s): Men’s soccer put together a nice run, including second place in the Ivy League (they beat champion Cornell in the only head-to-head match-up), a consistent top-20 national ranking, and a tight 2-1 loss to #2 Maryland in the second round of the NCAA tournament. With half the starters graduating, next year may be less of a good time, but you never know. Hope springs eternal.

Soccer (Women’s): The women’s soccer team started the season 6-1. I won’t tell you what their final record was so that we can all just remember them as the team that started 6-1. But I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t as impressive as 6-1, or even, say, 6-6.

Softball: The 10-28 finish wasn’t so hot for softball, but take out that unlucky 11-game losing streak in April and they were really just, uh, 10-17. Damn. I thought that would sound better than it did.

Squash (Men’s): The preppy northeast schools are so dominant in squash that Bruno’s 8-12 record was good enough to qualify for top-16 nationals (we lost all three matches there). Funny story–the squash boys picked up their only conference win of the year in the regular season finale when the Dartmouth coach benched six of his nine players for drinking the night before. Final score: Brown 6 Forfeits, Dartmouth 3 Actual Matches. Yeah, suck it, Dartmouth.

Squash (Women’s): The squash ladies picked up a legitimate Ivy win over Columbia, plus the Dartmouth freebie (those Dartmouth women’s squash rascals got suspended along with the men). They finished eighth in the country after losing all three of their nationals matches 9-0, which, according to the unbiased reporting at BrownBears.com, “did not reflect how well the team played.” Yeah–if you had fun, you won, I always say.

Swimming & Diving (Men’s): The aquadynamic (new word I just made up) male Brunonians finished 7th at Ivies, where standout Tommy Glenn ’14 repeated as 100 and 200 butterfly champion; Glenn also appeared in the same events at NCAA’s, placing 17th and 23rd, respectively.

Swimming & Diving (Women’s): The female aquastars (another new word; I’m on fire) also finished 7th at Ivies and set like 700 Brown records (as did the men, at least according to the team website), though they didn’t pick up any individual titles. Should we be worried that the swim team gets crushed but still sets a ton of Brown records? What does that say about Brown swimming historically? Nothing good, I don’t think.

Tennis (Men’s): The 14-10 overall, 4-3 Ivy finish for men’s tennis was highlighted by an upset win over then-#21 Harvard, the Crimshit’s (see what I did there?) only Ivy loss of the season. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Tennis (Women’s): The season did not go as well for women’s tennis, who picked up their lone Ivy win against Dartmouth and finished 7-13 overall. On the plus side, doubles team Misia Kraskowski ’13 and Hannah Camhi ’16 were unanimous first-team all-Ivy selections.

Volleyball: If you’ve made it this far in the post, you probably don’t want to hear that volleyball finished 7-17 overall and 3-11 in the Ivy League, so I won’t tell you that. Instead, I’ll tell you that People Mag is reporting that Tori Spelling got a “unique,” “playful,” and “deeply romantic” spinning-diamond anniversary ring!!! Wow!

Water Polo (Men’s): Men’s water polo saw their season came to a disappointing end when they bowed out of the regional tournament with a loss to rival Princeton. Still, a top-20 ranking is nothing to scoff at (if you don’t tell anyone about how there are only 36 teams in the NCAA).

Water Polo (Women’s): Playing a tough schedule, the women’s wopo team finished 18-20 overall but 5-3 in conference. And don’t worry–just like the men, they can shit on Harvard, dropping them 12-10, 16-12, and 18-9 in their three match-ups.

Wrestling: Last but not least, wrestling picked up 11th place in the Eastern region tournament and sent individual qualifiers Billy Watterson ’14 and Ophir Bernstein ’15 to NCAA championships. The year was perhaps most notably marked by the retirement of 30-year of coach Dave Amato at season’s end. He was third among all active college wrestling coaches in career wins.

Well, that just about does it for the 2012-2013 Brown Bears athletic season. I guess you could follow crew’s progress in their rowing thingies in a couple weeks if you’re craving more. And I know you are…

Image via.

Then + Now

As seniors, we hear a lot about the “bucket list:” The SciLi challenge, 5 a.m. Louis, WaterFire, etc. Throughout this year, my friends and I kept putting various parts of the list off until later. But then, all of a sudden, it was May and I started to feel anxious about not having enough time to complete the list in my limited days left on the Hill.

At first, the realization caused an uneasy feeling—something reminiscent of the FOMO (fear of missing out) you feel during your first semester freshman year when you’re sick or busy and you miss a frat party that all your friends are talking about the next morning in the Ratty. I never went to Sex Power God. I never snuck onto the roof of any Brown buildings. I never took Mande. Does that mean I haven’t made the most of my college years? As an eager freshman, I told myself I would do all these random “must do before you graduate” things one day.

This quarter-life crisis caused me to wonder what it really means to make the most of your college experience. Obviously, this answer is going to be different for each person. But, I do know that it actually doesn’t have anything to do with an arbitrary list of activities.

I walked into the Van Wickle Gates as a 17 year old … literally a child (thank you, NY public school cutoff). I had so many ideas of things I wanted to do. I wanted to be on UCS. I wanted to be a tour guide on campus. I wanted to study abroad in Australia.

Like the bucket list I haven’t completed, I didn’t follow through on all of my plans. I quit UCS after about four meetings. I realized that I shouldn’t try walking backwards around campus (for those who know me, you know this is true). And, I studied abroad in Copenhagen, nearly 10,000 miles away from Australia.

I haven’t taken Econ since freshman year, but if I remember correctly, an opportunity cost is a situation in which you need to make a choice given limited resources. Your time at Brown is kind of like an opportunity cost. There’s only so much you can do successfully. So, you have to make choices. The things you don’t have a chance to do end up becoming your regrets. But, as long as you do make choices (even if they end up being bad ones), your regrets just mean that you were busy—you didn’t have time to do everything.

Regrets can make you realize what seriously matters to you. There’s probably a lot I didn’t do in my time at Brown, but there are only a few things that stand out as genuine regrets. I don’t truly regret not taking Mande, but I do wish I took more education policy classes in the Ed department. However, this missed opportunity doesn’t mean I wasted my time at Brown. Rather, recognizing this regret helped inform my decision to attend law school in the Fall.

I want to turn the saying “no regrets” on its head. Embrace your regrets and decide how you’re going to act on them. Figure out a way to do some of the things you didn’t have a chance to do at Brown in the next step of your life. I’m leaving Brown with regrets, but they will influence my future interests and plans.

Lastly, there are some regrets that you are just going to have to laugh about. I regret walking into MSex freshman year thinking it was my first Econ110 section, but there are better ways to spend my time than harping on why I didn’t double check the room number. And who cares if my housemates and I used Tide Laundry Detergent Pods instead of Cascade in our dishwasher for a few months? What’s done is done, and when we look back on the mistake, we’re going to laugh… or be grateful we’re alive and weren’t poisoned.

Going back to the Brown Bucket List, I’ve come to accept that I’m probably walking out of the Gates with a lot of things unchecked. But, your college experience is not defined by crossing items off of a list. There is no one way to make the most of your time here. I’ve definitely had my share of FOMO at Brown, but I’ve realized that if I’m doing something else that I enjoy while missing out on some other random activity, it’s all worth it in the end. The everyday things—like the night my friends and I attempted to cook baked Ziti in the pre-renovated Keeney kitchen or the many days I spent enjoying the sun on the Main Green—are more important to me than any list.

Leaving college for the first time is weird.  There’s not a campus-wide End of the Year Assembly or a shared rejoicing in the hallways. You probably won’t run into your classmates in your neighborhood come June, either. Well, maybe you will, considering half of this campus is from “just outside of Boston,” New York City, or Southern California (51st thing I learned freshman year?).

As the rest of your due dates and exams begin to approach, you find it hard to keep track of the days and times when your friends are leaving, when their parents are taking you to brunch, and when you’ll see them next. It’s a weird feeling, especially after spending months hanging out, going out, and studying together. These are things we’ve all just gotten used to.

The oddness of this drawn-out goodbye process—which revolves the college exam calendar—is just another addition to the list of the things I’ve learned this year. After a late-night Rock session, my roommate and I decided that the end of finals is an unsettling conclusion to a year that’s been so life-changing. Maybe that’s too hyperbolic, but there’s no denying that these past eight months have inevitably been full of change: new friends, new classes, new city, etc. Even after all of this growth, the year ends abruptly without a formal conclusion. The freshman experience is over, I wouldn’t change anything about it. No, not even the mistakes (but I won’t indulge you with that now; that’s a whole other post).

But here’s the silver lining to forgetting to wish your kinda-sorta-maybe friend who lives down the hall a great summer: we freshmen get three more years to keep figuring this all out. As we break for summer, we should debrief on how far we’ve come in the past year, and how far we’ll continue to go before leaving. So here’s to not having to use Google Maps to get to class next semester and to being sophomores come September.