Never have I been more relieved or more heartbroken to be a transfer student than in these final days of my two years at Mills.
Part of me–the more expressive part at the moment–is screaming for the finish line. Mountains of papers, piles of books, frantic Fridays finishing articles and putting together the beast known as The Campanil…all finished in just a few more days!
But as I sit at my desk in the newsroom or greet old professors in between classes at Mills Hall or laugh with my friends at Founders on a Tuesday evening, it really hits me that it’s all going to be over soon.
In the beginning, I was attracted to Mills for its emphasis on social justice, its beautiful and diverse location and for the promise of class discussions that didn’t revolve around a handful of men who thought their brains were God’s gift to this earth. I loved the idea of Mills for all it represented: a utopia for folks of marginalized genders and a place for people passionate about making the world a better place.
But in reality, it was even better than all that.
Mills is complicated and beautiful, and it has its problems for sure, but it also has students who love this school so much they won’t rest until they make it a better place.
The first time I stepped into The Campanil’s newsroom, just weeks after orientation, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to practice my writing and to get some publication credits to bolster my wimpy English-student resume. But after seeing the passion that my fellow student journalists had for this school and this paper, The Campanil became a fixture in my life, and a way that I, too, could give back to this school that had already given me so much.
But now that my two years here are up, all I really want is more time at Mills.
I’ve done my best to get all I could out of my Mills education: I’ve attended office hours, met published writers and taken classes with the best professors. But really, it’s been the people I’ve met – some slogging through the student journalist grind alongside me, some doing amazing things worth writing articles about and some standing alongside me from day one, supporting me every step of the way toward graduation – who have really made my Mills experience worthwhile.
Before coming here, I couldn’t have even imagined how much of a home this school would become to me, or how much I would come to see the people here as my family. I had to leave home once to come to Mills, and now I feel like I’m leaving home again.
