Reflection

Looking back on this letter, I think I was a little ambitious my freshman year. I definitely overcame a lot of adversity, especially last year. I had a lot of things happen in my personal life that I don’t think freshman John was expecting, some of which I am still dealing with, but I think I was able to make the most of it and overcame most of it. I fell short on my goal of maintaining a 4.0 GPA, but I honestly think that I am happier not having it. When I still had a 4.0, I noticed that my social life was taking a hit, every spare moment I had I was spending on school work, and I definitely missed out on making connections early in my college career, which is probably the number one regret I have over the past few years. While scholarship is important, I would argue that it is the least important of our three pillars, and that building connections and community with other people and students is much more important. Once I started putting more emphasis on building relationships with the people around me, I felt a lot better and life generally got a lot easier without the stress of maintaining perfect grades. In terms of community, I think I met my goals of making the most of Longwood’s traditions, especially Spring Weekend and Oktoberfest. I was able to make it to these events almost every year and it was a nice break from the rest of the semester, not to mention all of the opportunities that they brought me. I was also much more optimistic about my wrestling career. Even though I wrote this as the COVID pandemic started, I still thought that I would still be wrestling for the club team, but unfortunately the pandemic pretty much put an end to it. I am grateful that I met my goal of making as many connections with my professors and fellow computer science majors as possible. These connections formed a nice support system, and I know that any question I have, there’s someone who will be able to answer. I am noticing a lack of goals related to service, but I think that I did a little bit of it. I served as an RA for a couple years, a feat that freshman John never would have imagined himself doing. Through that position, I was able to serve as an enforcer of policy on campus, as well as a resource for freshmen who needed someone to talk to or needed advice to solve their problems.