Senior Reflection: Niven Achenjang

It feels weird to sit here and begin to type out my senior reflection. Not just because I only graduated a few weeks ago; not just because it has not hit me that Gatton has ended; not just because the Gatton Facebook page is still active; not just because I have seen some of my fellow graduates recently, but because I am typing this a few days after it was due. If there is something people do not realize about Gatton students, it is that many of us (or at the very least me) have a habit of procrastinating assignments.

These past two years at Gatton were the strangest of my life, and I would not have them any other way (Well, no curfew would have been nice). I entered Gatton with few expectations and an unlimited supply of worries, all of which were quickly dealt with. Will everyone be anti-social, only focusing on academics? Not even close. Gatton is so much more than coursework (although that is important), and the community is far from anti-social. Will I be able to take the classes I want, or will these be two years of just general education classes? In the past two years, I have taken 2 philosophy classes, 4 computer science classes, and 8 math classes, so I am going to call this a yes. Will I stop running regularly and become slow and out of shape? Unfortunately, that did happen.

Despite what I gave up (running ability, time with friends/family, frequently eating at 2 Amigos, etc.), Gatton was worth it. It gave me interesting classes, study abroad opportunities, research experience, and all that other jazz you would expect on a Gatton pamphlet, but more so than those, Gatton was full of a lot of memorable little things. It had ultimate frisbee games (almost) daily, late night discussions lasting until 3 in the morning, multiple-hour long walks to GADS, etc. At Gatton, we reduced entire sentences to single words (Ex. “Do you want to go get food?” → “food?”), had real life poke wars, took Derick’s advice that “if a door is unlocked, that means you are allowed to go through it” a little more seriously than he intended, and both started and finished projects and 10-page papers in a single night.

Looking back on my two years at Gatton, they were not spent at a typical school, doing typical school things, They were spent forming inside jokes, becoming a part of and evolving a culture, partially losing my ability to speak English goodly, and creating stories I will remember for a long time. My takeaway from Gatton is not college credit and academic preparedness, but it is what I learned from my time outside of class. It’s the friendships I forged, the lessons I learned, and the fact that I really do not like to do my work until its due the next day.