Dear UBC,
Dear UBC,
Time will erode the painful, exciting and teary-eyed celebration that is the culmination of emotions of graduation. I wanted to take some time to pause and capture what my time on your campus has meant to me.
I leave your campus a different person than who I entered as. I am both confident and uncertain that I know much more and much less than I knew on that first Imagine day in 2014. I do know it was raining that September morning.
Your motto is “It’s Yours”. It’s a brilliant philosophy. The professors you’ve exposed me to provide all students with the resources to succeed, but it is only those who take it upon themselves to become something more than good who end up truly excelling. I am not the smartest nor most accomplished to enter or to leave your campus, but you offered me the opportunity to develop. For that, I thank you.
The education I’ve been most fortunate to receive has come significantly from my peers. They have taught me countless things. How to write emails. How to better listen. How to become more disciplined. How to get over a 12-foot wooden wall. How to plan. How to be a better friend. So many how to’s it has become hard to count.
The worst part about leaving your campus is not being able to see those closest around me. Being challenged intellectually is the formal intention of coming to university. However, the people I met are the reasons why I stayed. It is only with the greatest luck that the rest of my time can be filled with the same quality of people and discussion that has filled the past four years.
This time at UBC would be incalculably worse without those peers. I cannot stress this enough. Without them there is no late-night McDonalds, no lunch beers, no memes, no laughs over how hard that midterm was, no joking about how no one knows how to cite confidently, no committee meetings. There would be no times to look back at, no times to miss once I leave. Without them, I would not have become the person I am today. I am indebted to them as much as I am to you for bringing us together in the same place at the same time.
I hope clouds of sorrow draws in on those who are finishing university. I hope that those graduating are sad to leave your campus, that they soon miss people. I hope they miss the classes and the professors. Empathy should be given to those who are leaving your campus that aren’t feeling sorrow, for that might mean they aren’t leaving these good times behind.
UBC, you’ve seen me cry. You’ve seen me throw up. You’ve seen me rip some pants dancing. You’ve seen me fail a test or two. It was not an easy four years, nor should it have been. You gave me the chance to make it my own and for that I thank you.
Sincerely,
Ben Foster
B.A.
