For plants to grow they need nourishment, sunlight, and water. If only it were so easy for humans to grow. For us humans, nourishment, water and sunlight help us grow on the outside, but it’s the stuff on the inside that means the most. So how do we grow? For me it’s about the challenges, experiences, pains, happy times, knowledge, mistakes, successes, the list is endless. Inner growth is hard to gauge because there really is no scale for a feeling of growing or progressing as a person.
College has been about the things that really challenge us to grow on the inside. The nights and assignments that push us to almost insanity, the relationships and debates that make us question our morals, the mornings where we want to stay in bed but get up and proceed with life anyway—it’s been about the moments that make us realize there are choices in life and we get to decide how to interact with the world.
The Environmental Studies department has done all of those things and more. It has reshaped the way I think about the world around me as well as the way I interact with people and information. There is no longer a black and white world– one way to think about things, there is a plethora of theories, paths, and solutions. Nothing is cut and dry. I have grown to assess situations and problems from different perspectives before choosing which one resonates best with me. For me growth has been about pushing myself academically and emotionally. And I’ve realized we can choose to never stop growing or to never grow up.