Emma Rossi<\/a> · Sports Editor ’23, Editor-in-Chief ’24-25<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen I volunteered to write the alum editorial, all ideas or concepts for any article I would’ve wanted to write or could’ve written escaped my mind \u2013 a classic Collegian tradition. Clearly, I’m in the spirit of Homecoming!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I could write about my newfound post-grad success (a very short article), or I could reminisce on my days at Grove City. I could lament the many pitfalls of the past five months, or I could skip those since they’ve been done before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I looked back over the past years of alum editorials, I found articles written by my dear friends and former peers expressing the exact feelings of insecurity and uncertainty that I suffer from now. What a comfort! I mean that sincerely. It seems that post-grad life is pretty uniform for everyone. It’s a lot like being a freshman at Grove City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You graduate with confidence in who you are, excited for the next chapter and ready for whatever your new life throws at you. Then, your new life actually begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s fun, foreign and exciting. You can take yourself in any direction you choose. Simultaneously, it’s scary, daunting and unnerving. You spend a lot of time pretending like you know what you’re doing and where you’re going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a few weeks, maybe a month, you fall into a steady routine and convince yourself you’ve mastered your new surroundings, and nothing can bring you down. Then reality hits (whether it comes in the form of a failed exam or a job rejection depends on whether you’re 18 or 22), and you’re thrown totally out of whack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The similarities are striking. There’s even a post-grad version of the Org Fair \u2014 LinkedIn! You’ll put your name down for dozens of opportunities, and you’ll probably never see anything come of it \u2013 not even an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what I didn’t know as a freshman that I try to remind myself of now is that no matter how put-together your peers may seem by the time your first Homecoming rolls around, you’re all still fresh-faced in your new phase of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as I did as a freshman, I now share late-night conversations with friends about how clueless we feel. (The only difference is that I go to bed at 9 p.m., so my post-grad late-night is the freshman equivalent of early evening.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Likewise, what I find extraordinarily reassuring is that just as patience paid off in my freshman year and things eventually did fall into place, now too will patience pay off and things will eventually fall into place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life outside the Grove City “bubble” is very different, yes, and the same successes and opportunities guaranteed on campus are not as readily available, of course. But what doesn’t change regardless of your place and pace of living is the reliability of God and His work in your life \u2013 even when it is unseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s funny how quickly we can forget how provident God has been in our lives. It’s ironic how quickly we fall into a false sense of complacency and confidence in our own capabilities, when time and time again we prove not to really know much about anything at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My experiences at Grove City College have not only shaped me as a professional and given me what I need to be successful, but they have also fundamentally affected who I am as an individual, thanks to the challenges I encountered along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s such a privilege to return to campus to see friends who are still here, enjoying their four years, and to reunite with fellow graduates who are also experiencing the same “freshman” feeling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the Tower<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[27,146,34],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-tower","tag-editorial","tag-emma-rossi","tag-issue-2025-10-10"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"From the Tower","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1946,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions\/1946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}