Dear Beckie,
To begin, prepare for the four most exhilarating, challenging, and quickest years of your life. You thought that high school went by in a breeze? High school’s got nothing on how quickly four years goes by in university. Nevertheless, you made the right choice. Glendon is the right school for you. You’re going to be a little bit nervous when you first confirm your offer – will the tiny campus still give you the university experience you want? Don’t fret. You’ll have an even better experience than most of your friends at the big universities.
The small campus will become your home. You’ll also get to take classes at Keele to get the big university ‘feel’ but you’ll always prefer Glendon to Keele. Glendon was not just a school for you; it was a home away from home. You’ll miss that when you graduate I’m sure but you’ll always be thankful that you were able to have that experience at your university.
These years will not go by without some setbacks. After your first year, you’ll go on the most exciting trip you could imagine – going back to England for the first time in 8 years! That trip will end up being the best decision you’ve ever made. Mostly, because it will be the last time that you will spend time with your Nan as she will pass away in your third year. This will always be a hard memory to reflect on but you’ll go in life knowing that you were able to have those moments to remember for years to come. This will be a surprise to you but you’ll end up scheduling counselling appointments to deal with grief management and in the end, you’ll be thankful you decided to. It helped you to understand what you were feeling and to balance grief with school. You’re a better person for asking for help.
You’re not going to find the prince charming you were hoping to find after 4 years of not finding him in high school. This will be an insecurity of yours but you always find a way to remember that while people your age were falling in love, you were dealing with real life situations.
This isn’t to say you’ll never find boys that you like – no, there WILL be a few (because you’re so unbelievably picky) but again and again, it won’t work out for a number of reasons. Despite this fact, you’ll remind yourself of what “Our Glad” always said – to focus on school and let everything else fall into place when it’s ready to.
You’ll worry about your whether you chose the right program but you did. First year me can read this blog post to understand more. By fourth year, you won’t be a complete expert in your field but you’ll have worked really hard in all of your classes and your marks reflect that. And hey, you’ll also score a really great summer student position in your second year that helps you pay for school on your own!
When you graduate, you’ll have become a determined, strong, funny, and confident young woman. And…you’ll have an idea of what you want to do when you graduate. You’re set to go into a post-graduate certificate program in public administration. This is something you’re passionate about – not necessarily knowing specifically where you want to work but to work in a position where you can help people by answering their questions as quickly and efficiently as you can.
You’ll become friends with some of the most amazing people you’ve ever wanted to meet. Seriously. You’ll find friends who find you funny and witty and let you do what you love to do – make people laugh! You’ll stay up, even in your fourth year, with friends playing the Sims; you’ll go to pub nights or dinners out with your close friends and laugh uncontrollably and make the memories you couldn’t fit in a memory box because they’re not tangible – they’re inside jokes and silly memories you can’t put into words.
You’ll stay friends with some of your closest friends from high school; some of them you may lose touch with but the moment you talk again, it’s like time hasn’t moved. Nevertheless, there will be those that you decide to cut loose because you were done trying to be their friend when they weren’t trying to be yours. All in all, you’ll graduate knowing that the friendships you made at Glendon will stay with you for years to come.
Love,
Becks
#Glendonite 