I wouldn’t say I’ve had a normal college experience. It seems every year some kind of natural disaster tries to ruin my fun. 

I began my time at NC State as a Spring Connect student in the program’s first year. The program launched for the simple fact there was never enough room for housing in the fall, so those selected had to start in the spring semester. Let’s just say I got a cold welcome, literally. 

My mother didn’t have to worry about me partying as soon as I got dropped off because move-in day was complete with an out-of-character snowstorm in North Carolina. Most of the welcome events got cancelled, and the campus was virtually deserted. I think I only saw three people in my dorm for a whole week. 

The next fall I got a great birthday present, Hurricane Florence, which brought inconsistent cancellations and made professors scramble to keep their syllabi intact. The year after that was Hurricane Dorian. 

Did I mention how hard it is to walk on an entirely brick campus in the rain?

Now we have a literal global pandemic which has seemingly shut down the world indefinitely. Truthfully, I get upset when things get cancelled, rearranged and thrown off because I’m a planner. With COVID-19, I absolutely hate not knowing what’s next. 

Despite all of this, I wouldn’t trade my time at NC State for anything. Like anyone, my college experience hasn’t gone as planned. But for every bad time, I’ve had even more great ones. Tailgates, basketball games, late-night library dates, Cookout runs, people-watching in Talley, tripping on bricks… OK maybe not that one. 

My intention is not to sound gloomy but rather to point out that everything can change in an instant, and it should be a priority of ours to make the most of our time at NC State or wherever you are. One of the best lessons I’ve learned in college is to adapt and move on. Dwelling only makes things worse and could cause you to miss out on so many other great things. 

Sure the goal is a college degree, but instead of focusing on graduation and stressing right now, let’s focus on the journey that brought us here and how we’re handling it. We are the first generation to ever switch solely to online classes, and not by choice. Yet somehow we are making it work. I’d say that’s pretty good.

So, when we do return to campus or move to the next step in our lives, even the days that seem bad or boring may not be the worst after all. We just may choose to go out and try something new that day, like a campus event or a networking mixer. I think we’ll come out of COVID-19 with a new appreciation for our friends, our professors and our school. I know I can’t wait to be back on campus, surrounded by all the bricks I’ve almost grown to miss. 

Emilee Phillips is a fourth-year studying communications with a minor in journalism.