In light of our special issue for Accepted Students Day at Cabrini, we on the Loquitur editorial staff thought long and hard about the message we wanted to send to the high school students and families trying to decide if Cabrini is the right college. We thought about telling you why we love Cabrini, how it’s more than just a college for us and how you can have an incredible experience here. All of which is true but you can see so much of what Cabrini has to offer by reading the rest of this issue.
Instead, we decided to share with you, as upperclassmen to incoming college freshmen, the greatest lesson we have learned, in the hopes that will make your decision easier and your college experience even better, especially if you come to Cabrini: you don’t need to have it all figured out right now. College can be the best four years of your life and also some of the most confusing, which in turn, is also why it’s great.
If you know you want to train for a specific career while you’re in college, more power to you. But if you’re like most of us and most of the college students around the country, you’re going to change your mind a couple of times. You’re not going to have it all figured out. And while Cabrini can get you ready for one exact career if you so choose, at the same time, it is full of students exploring various options simultaneously. And while it can be frightening and you can feel pressure, we see this uncertainty as an advantage to broaden our horizons and the fact that we go to a school that encourages us to try new things as a blessing.
Most of us, as upperclassmen, feel like we have multiple doors open to us because of our liberal arts curriculum. We find that now we have interests that extend beyond our majors. For example, our Engagement with the Common Good courses have given us a sense of some of the issues our world faces beyond our beautiful Main Line campus. That’s an advantage and it can change your life.
You can take classes in a wide variety of subjects beyond your major to enhance your life. You can travel and see the world or you can make a difference right here in the local community. You can play sports, join various clubs and form life-long relationships with your peers and teachers. You can find mentors in various departments. There is no limit as to what college can do for you, especially a college such as this one, so long as you do not limit yourself. College isn’t just about one thing.
We know it’s really difficult when you’re 18 years old to know where you want to spend the next four years. We’ll share a personal note with you, which is that five out of 12 editors on our staff are transfer students, meaning we’re in a completely different place than where we originally started. So you can take it from us, it’s okay to not have it all figured out. To be honest, we’ve learned that most of us probably never will, at least all at once. We’ve learned that growing up is being able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and to keep moving forward, despite not having all the answers or despite being thrown curveballs.
As we face graduation either this year or next and you face your graduation from high school this year, we want you to know that most of us don’t know exactly what our next four years will hold either. But we do know that because we’ve expanded ourselves farther than we ever thought we could while at Cabrini, we have options. If you are like us and want to explore, expand yourself and figure things out in a community that supports your dreams, then you’re meant to be Cavaliers too.
