The Brown & White

From speaking with some seniors, I've come to the conclusion that their situations are a Catch-22; they really want to graduate and receive their diplomas, but they love the college lifestyle so much that they don't want to leave.

Take a look down memory lane, to the first day you arrived on campus and walked up those stairs to get to your freshman dorm. I am pretty sure most of you can recall the mixture of anxiety, excitement, fear, and for some, the relief of finally getting out from under your parents' roof.

As your college journey comes to an end, those same emotions will resurface, come graduation day. But with all the emotions you may feel, there is one thing that each Lehigh graduate must do - and that's say goodbye.

With that said, to all the graduating seniors, your time at Lehigh will soon be over. You will enter the real world with aspirations to find, and hopefully getting hired into, a job you love.

But before you go, I feel the need to remind you all to say "goodbye." Not just to the ones you know, but to the place that has established itself as your home away from home, The Great Lehigh.

Say goodbye to all your friends you see on a daily basis, who have always been there even when pressures built up and you felt like you could no longer take it.

Say goodbye to the professors who made your experience challenging yet swell, and also the ones who made it a living hell.

Say goodbye to the academic advisors who have guided you along your way, from helping you select classes to sending e-mails when they had concerns about your GPA.

Say goodbye to the services of Brickman Landscaping and OneSource Cleaning, for making this campus attractive and clean; from landscaping to building maintenance, where they are often seen.

For many of you, say goodbye to your fraternity or sorority, where you learned the value of brotherhood and sisterhood and made it a top priority.

Say goodbye to the welcoming smiles of Tony and Debbie at the Goose, who offered a variety of delicious sandwiches at times it may be hard to choose.

Say goodbye to the satisfying meals provided by your house's chef, the University Center and Rathbone, which provide meals daily, but still don't match the ones our moms prepare back home.

Say goodbye to TRACS, for hauling around intoxicated students in large vans. Say goodbye to the squirrels who occasionally scare the crap out of us by unexpectedly jumping out of garbage cans.

Say goodbye to all those drunken keg party nights, and pulling all-nighters for papers you had to write.

Say goodbye to playing beer pong, "Beeruit" or whatever you want to call it, the game responsible for a few overgrown guts and students-turned-alcoholics.

Say goodbye to Pantry 1, which has always been there to provide a late-night snack; hoagies to the left, drinks to the right and frozen dinners located in the back.

Say goodbye to the various festivities of St. Patty's Day, Lehigh style, with students decked in green and ready to go wild.

Say goodbye to Lehigh police for providing a sense of security and intruding all those nights when you just wanted to party; for handing out fines and citations when you were caught drunk with a red cup full of Bacardi.

Say goodbye to the atmospheric buzz of Lehigh-Lafayette week. The longest football rivalry in NCAA history makes it a must-see every time these two teams meet.

Say goodbye to Leon's, McGrady's and the Riverport Starters. These bars are some of the locations where you met new people, including future lifelong partners.

Hopefully for you, all your college experience has been as promoted "the four best years of your lives."

But soon from now, you will have to say your goodbyes.