The Last First Week

Katie D.

March 31, 2010 - 10:44 AM

Friends and readers, this is truly the beginning of the end. Yesterday marked the last time I will walk into the first day of class as an undergraduate. Perhaps this is a little melodramatic, but it's also startling in its inescapable truth. Like it or not, my undergraduate career is coming to an end.

Spring has always been a difficult term for me: the weather is often too beautiful to encourage good study habits, and there is summer looming around the corner. Each year of college has been so wonderful that the approaching end has been a bittersweet experience. This year is even more intense: even though I plan to stay here at the University of Oregon, there is a chapter of my life that is coming to a close. Most of my friends will move away, I will (hopefully) shift to the other side of campus and to a whole new focus, and my normal habits and haunts will change to accommodate all these changes.

On Monday I was walking through campus with my friend Maddy and as we passed a hot dog stand she mentioned that she had always wanted to eat there but never had. We stopped for a hot dog and for some (as I've taken to thinking of it) preemptive nostalgia. With ten weeks to go, you would think that we would feel that there's plenty of time. But days are speeding by, with ever-increasing piles of work, and the end rushes closer and closer.

Oof.

The good news is that my classes this term are going to be amazing. I'm taking Zumba again, this time with Maddy and Ben. It's going to be so much fun. In academic news, I'm taking a Spanish literature class about the author and activist Jose Marti, which promises to be both challenging and exciting. I'm taking my final math/science requirement in the form of an online Physics class entitled "How physicists view nature." I think it will be incredibly interesting, and will hopefully balance my intense interest in the science behind the natural world and my abysmal math skills.

I've already picked a favorite class, though. My final sociology class is "Nonviolent Social Change" with Micheal Dreiling. It is going to be an amazing term. He came out swinging in the first class: before he even introduced himself he challenged us to provide a definition to the idea of "oppression." We've already talked about the multiple forms of violence, basic theories of social change, and the levels of conflict in society, from roommates to international wars.

It's the perfect class for me: theory mixed with real-world examples, with a professor who's willing to challenge the students to apply their own ideas and experiences to the coursework. Just in that first class, my mind was racing through the many causes I have been involved with in the last years, and how those organizations have struggled to resolve conflict and oppression. This course will provide a new frame for my work for social justice, and for my future studies. It's the perfect introduction to my future studies in conflict resolution: creating a foundation of theories in nonviolent social movements to carry with me into my advanced studies.

With all of this excitement, though, I have to report a conflict growing in my own psyche. The dilemma, of course, is the thesis. With all these fabulous courses, and the excitement of spring growing, I am going to have to seriously discipline myself to work on my thesis. At the beginning of the year, I had done more research and writing than any of my friends. Now I am running at the middle of the pack, perhaps even falling behind as I have dreamed up new projects and passions to fill my time. I now have to sit down and complete this project I have started. My thesis is something I care about deeply, and am so excited about, but it's also just so HUGE. Even twenty-five pages in, I'm intimidated by the scope of what I've set out to do.

One of my advisors has recommended that I simply start working on it every day. So I will. Half an hour, every day. That's seven days a week, without fail. Hopefully I'll be doing much longer stretches than that on most days, but I think a half an hour is the minimum amount of time to sit down and put the words on the pages.

Time is slipping by... I have so little time. Time ticking on my thesis, on the publication project, on my undergraduate career. I've got to make the time count, got to get the work done and count each moment with my friends as a precious chance for connection before we strike out on our adult lives. There is much to be done, readers.

Wish me luck.