As my college career comes to a close, it is interesting to reflect upon the past four and a half years. My journey through my undergraduate studies has not been typical, nor has it been easy. At times, I didn’t think I would make it through to receive my diploma. Some days were such a struggle that I simply wanted to quit. As I continue to persevere through a heavy loaded, six-course semester while balancing work and other duties, I try to maintain positive thoughts that the end is near. The end, that is, of one chapter, with the beginning of another.

Since a young age, everybody has told me “I’m lucky because school comes easy to me.” I always succeeded in school, and always took that for granted. Of course, as a young person it’s quite easy to do so. During my first semester of college, I wondered why everybody said college was so hard. As an honors student at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, I found my classes to be extremely easy. One day, I questioned this: why am I paying tens of thousands of dollars for an education that’s “easy?” Now, the real problem wasn’t the “ease” of my studies. The real problem was the lack of stimulation and challenge. I was yearning for a challenge, and I wasn’t receiving that at Salve.

So, as a western Massachusetts native, I came home and transferred to Holyoke Community College. In fact, my parents forced me to do so. They were frustrated with my decision to leave Salve after begging them to attend. Of course, I can understand their point of view. As an only child, and one of the first in my family to strive for a bachelor’s degree, this territory was unknown and extremely frightening to them. I went through the motions at HCC, hating almost every minute of it. There were two courses I truly enjoyed and look back on with fond memories. The first was my student teaching practicum where I spent each day in a preschool classroom for a semester. The other was the one and only Spanish class I took at HCC.

In both of these experiences I found the “challenge” I was striving for. The challenges were so rewarding because they pertained to disciplines that intrigued me. It was that Spanish class that motivated me to consider becoming a Spanish minor. Soon enough, that “minor” turned into a major and here I am today. All of my Spanish classes at UMASS have been beneficial. I don’t regret taking any of them, or wish that some weren’t requirements. The hardest classes have been the best because I can truly reflect knowing that I have learned a lot.

I think that the Spanish major represents more to me than just “learning the language.” It also represents knowledge of so many different cultures outside of my own: it represents a new love for travel in pursuit of exploring all of these cultures. More importantly for myself, it represents the importance of struggle and making mistakes as a mechanism for learning. Sure, my Spanish isn’t perfect, but it’s not about that.

My degree encompasses so much more than my fluency in the language. I believe that working towards being completely fluent is a lifelong pursuit. I regret that I didn’t have the ability to study abroad for a year, but my experiences are my own and are so different from that of anybody else in the Spanish major. My short time abroad taught me a lot, but left me wanting more: more travel and more practice. Although it seems like three completely different stages of my life, my time spent at all three learning institutions ties together to create one cohesive degree. This degree represents so much to me. I’m proud to attend UMASS Amherst because I truly love my area of study. I finally found the challenge I was looking for in each and every Spanish course I took here at UMASS, and I feel overwhelmingly lucky about this.