Avatar Intro: Seth Marksberry

Here we are again starting another year of growth and challenges at the Gatton Academy. When I entered last year, I, like most at the time, knew little of what trials were to await me upon passing through the threshold of this new world.  An aspiring aerospace engineer, I had arrived from a school more focused on football than physics with the goal to advance my knowledge and save the world. Though the progress of the second goal is debatable, a very good case could be made that I succeeded in my pursuit of furthering my academic ability and experience.

We were told we would be forced to work and think at a pace and level never before demanded from us in school thus far, but most of us didn’t take that to heart until we were dropped into our first real college classes. I can still remember the first paper I ever had to write for one of my professors, the first piece of calculus homework, every first you can think of and several you can’t. The academics were why we had all come, and we certainly got what we asked for, some of us more than we bargained for. Talk about deer in the headlights.

Most of us made it through, forming bonds along the way and learning far more than what our professors dictated to us. We learned about friendship and how to live in a community of like-minded individuals (and several not so like-minded). I personally learned that I was both smarter than and not as smart as I thought I was. We also learned that the definition of smart is somewhat arbitrary and ultimately pointless.

Now that I begin my second year at the academy, what should I be thinking about? There are so many aspects I could turn my attention to. There’s the classes getting harder, but they are also ultimately more exciting. Instead of being led, this year I am leading. The interesting part to me is that I really don’t know what I should be looking forward to or exactly how this year is going to go. Just like last year.

There will be late nights, long days, rough starts, and bittersweet endings to be sure. I’m sure the academy will teach me just as many tough lessons this year as it did in the last. It would be naïve to think that it will be a smooth ride all the way through. There will be lows for every high the year brings. With the looming specter of college applications reminding me that I will not be here next year, though, I can say one thing for certain about this upcoming year.

I will be drinking in every moment.