I walked onto LSU’s campus scared, lost and confused four years ago as I navigated through crowds of students in the hot August heat, just like any other LSU student. And now, after 120 hours of coursework, a handful of jobs and some articles in this newspaper later, I get to proudly join thousands of students in graduating from LSU with a bachelor’s degree.

Though I’m not the only member of the Class of 2022 who should be proud – getting a degree, regardless of your major, isn’t as easy as it looks.

How many all-nighters did you pull to finish a seemingly pointless assignment worth a quarter of your final grade? How many dollars have you spent studying at Highland Coffees? Do your eyes burn from all the hours under the LSU Library’s fluorescent lighting yet?

Sure, about one in every three Americans have gone through this same process, and maybe that makes you feel like having a college degree isn’t unique. Maybe everyone in your family has a college degree, so it felt like a no-brainer for you to get one. 

But only members of the Class of 2022 can say they finished just one year of school before being hit by the global COVID-19 pandemic and forced to coop up in their dingy apartments with their roommates for the foreseeable future. We are the only ones left who tasted pre-COVID college freedom – and before we could even legally drink.

The pandemic affected us all in some way, whether you applied for unemployment, fought with family over vaccines, contracted the virus yourself or lost a loved one to COVID-19. But you still went to Zoom class after Zoom class and completed assignment after assignment.

And if you had a job or student leadership role on the side, all I can say is kudos, and I hope you’ve been catching up on the sleep you didn’t get these last four years.

All of that work has led up to this moment, these few minutes in the spotlight while you walk across the stage and grab your piece of paper. And you should soak in every second of it. That’s right – you can leave those class GroupMe’s now. You won’t be needing them.

I won’t fill this letter with compliments and brags about how great we are, because truthfully, this was the easy part. Now comes unemployment, graduate school or working nine to five – all scary options to say the least.

Looking at the news won’t comfort your anxieties much either – we are entering the workforce when 46 million Americans have crippling student loan debt, natural disasters are ramping up due to climate change and the political sphere – is something I won’t even bother touching.

But I think if there’s one way to describe my fellow graduates, it would be resilient. With all this bad shit happening all the time, we can still enjoy a good tailgate on an LSU Gameday, a night out at Tigerland (or Splash Nightclub, or whatever bar you frequent), or organize a hurricane party in the face of frightening weather forecasts.

We’re friendly when others ask for help, and have no problems sharing our beer or crawfish with lonely-looking strangers. Our kindness is undeniable, and while I’m trying to avoid using cliches, the world needs more of that kindness right now.

As skeptical as I can be about LSU and this state, at the end of the day I can say I’m proud to be graduating with the Class of 2022, I’m happy to have attended LSU, and I hope you share the kindness Louisiana has shown you to everyone else in your life as you move to bigger things.

Geaux Tigers, and congratulations to all of us.

P.S., to Eli Alfred, the student who would play the ocarina in the Quad, I want you to know that you single handedly improved my college experience. Thank you.