Is it really graduation? Am I really less than two weeks away from being a college graduate?

The answer to those questions is obviously “yes.” On May 14, I will be amongst the sea of blue cap and gowns, standing at the appropriate time and searching the Moody Coliseum stands for faces I might recognize (but really just out of boredom).

As I reflect on my time at SMU, I’ve tried to come up with a list of things I’ve learned and what I will take with me into my future.

But there is no way to fully encapsulate an experience in a list and I feel trite for even attempting to do so.

College has changed me in ways that I neither expected nor desired.

As a double major in journalism and English, with a specialization in creative writing, I have developed as both a straightforward and poetic writer.

The formulaic quality of news writing was the perfect balance for the expressive unleashing of my subconscious offered by poetry and fiction courses.

Essays taught me that BS will sometimes earn you high marks. Articles taught me that BS is irresponsible. Group projects taught me that people aren’t perfect and you can’t enforce expectations on others.

Friendships with professors and classmates have encouraged me to believe that there are people who are as interested in learning as I am.

And by God, have I grown!

The first article I wrote for The Daily Campus was a pretty shoddy review of Dallas Theater Center’s “In the Beginning.”

Two years and hundreds of articles later, I will be attending graduate school at Syracuse University for Arts Journalism.

But this was after considering Business and Anthropology as viable double majors, after an internship at a publishing company and an application to work at a travel agency.

I spent a good deal of college searching for my passion before I found it.

You know you’re in the right field when you have no qualms with planning your social activities around it, and you find yourself using it as a point of reference in nearly every conversation.

I love writing about theater: Shakespeare, Beckett, Chekov and even Sondheim. I love analyzing which elements in a production worked or why I believed certain actors and not others.

I can’t offer any concrete advice about how to find your passion. I just know that finding it is a rude awakening. It required me to rearrange my life; I immersed myself in the world of theater.

Be open to the unexpected. Be cordial to everyone. Develop relationships with people you meet. Listen when people talk. Keep your eyes open for opportunity. Take on more responsibility than you think you can handle and you will grow into it.

The Daily Campus may not be perfect, but it’s run by staffers like me who are striving for quality, while also dealing with the normal stress of finding our place in the world. I owe a lot to this paper and to my fellow editors.

Parting advice? College is short and it can lead you to some incredible self-discovery. Treasure it and allow it to change you.

Lauren Smart is senior journalism and English double major. She can be reached for comments or questions at [email protected].