Dear ______________,
A full-time university student! Since this is a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for you, I will be a little loquacious, but you just have to deal with it!
How well I remember my first university days! I felt as if I was swimming in an immense pool of pure stun: the campus, the students from all over the earth, the libraries, the campus signature spots, the professors, the lectures, the sports scene, etc., etc., ad nauseum, ad gloriam! It wasn’t just that I was the first university student in my family’s history—that would have been enough—it was the atmosphere, the sights/sounds /smells/tastes/textures of a community of scholars pursuing knowledge, and all that went with it. And now it’s yours!
My counsel? (a) Appreciate the privilege of swimming in that same pool; a university education is a rare commodity in the earth. (b) Leave the University a better place than you found it, with the fragrance of your life lingering there on your departure. (c) Quietly demand of yourself that you will believe that you can do that; the profoundest mystery of human life is that each of us is a creature, but a cause as well, and most of us emphasize the “creature” and not the “cause” aspect. (d) Start and enjoy personal relationships with faculty and administrators as well as students; they’re people, too; you’ll be richer for it and they will be as well. (e) Choose your friends with care, because many of them will be friends for life, and will—in some ways—define you as you will them. (Remember: each of our four children found their mates at university. Scary!) (f) Be especially mindful of international students, and the “unimportant” (who don’t exist!). Every human is equidistant from God! (g) Remember who you are and Whose you are! (h) Walk into every class-room, not with pride, but with your head up and your shoulders back with a quiet serenity, as if you’re a champion. You are! (i). Enjoy!
Note that I didn’t say, “hit the books;” I know you’ll do that naturally and well. I didn’t want to waste space.
_______, you’re a winner, and a champion. And, like your parents and your sibling, I adore you and I’m proud of you.
Sincerely,
DAH