THE KID HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.. i am graduating summa cum laude from the university of tennessee, knoxville, with a BA in psychology :-) here is a small excerpt of a longer thing i have written
There have been multiple things I have learned along the way that greatly outweigh the assumed importance of higher education. The first is that your mental health does not determine who you are as a person, nor does it determine the extent of your capabilities. Do not resign to the sense of fatalism that comes with a diagnosis. The DSM does not know you personally, nor is it an accurate fortuneteller.
Second, relationships ebb and flow; closest friendships will change. Some will remain looking out for you from afar, some will become roommates, some will disappear. Sometimes you will even make a dear new friend during the last two months of college, and you’ll ask, “How the hell did we not meet during these past four years?” All of these outcomes are meant to be. As you get older, you realize that it is unrealistic to expect relationships to be as static as we hope for; you learn to support the positive growth of loved ones, whether that is closer to you or further from you. Cherish your time with them contextually; recognize that no one is the same person they were a year ago.
Dr. Guy Edlis encouraged his Theories of Personalities class to be unlike him, and to ingrain as many different concepts of the mind into their future work as graduate students, as therapists, and as professors; he encouraged us to not get hung up on one theory and abandon the rest. Similarly, although psychology is my deepest love, it is the foundation in which the courses outside of my major have been able to grow and color my perspective of myself and the world; after all, no field of study grows and lives in isolation. Taking Dr. Edlis' advice, his inspiration has become one important facet of the many that shape a true “Renaissance man,” and I feel like my time here has crafted just that.
Here marks the end of an era, and the beginning of another.
photo credit goes to my dear friend and roommate charlie - i owe you a lot for being bomb and for your immense patience during these 4 years :’)
