What can I possibly say to sum up my college career that Vitamin C didn’t already sing about? As I sit here listening to her ever so creative ballad for some inspiration, I cannot help but feel so nostalgic. How can the days of scrambling to finish an essay that I waited until the last minute to begin or the mornings of piecing together the mystery that was last night be over? I have never been so envious of super seniors.

I will spare you the “”when I was a freshman …”” stories but if you’re ever curious, I have plenty of them.

If I told you that there’s nothing I would change about the past four years at UA, I would be lying. Trust me, my time here has been plagued with plenty of bad decisions, but you live and you learn, right? I have learned that there’s never an excuse good enough to miss out on a night out with friends, that going to the library in the middle of the day is usually a better idea than a midday nap and going to the same fraternity more than two weekends in a row can only lead to bad things. Perhaps my greatest lesson of all has been that Jåger is not my friend and neither are the people who let me drink it.

Lucky for me, I have made good enough friends along the way that have helped me survive these bad decisions, or in the very least taught me to have a good sense of humor about it all. I am grateful for being surrounded by people that have stuck by my side. Even if I were on The Dirty, I bet their love wouldn’t have faltered. Thank goodness we will never know.

For every bad memory I have, there are at least two good ones. Despite what freshman Mal might have predicted or what Facebook suggests, most of my great memories involve little to no alcohol. As far as I am concerned, few things are better than the dance parties my friends and I held in my dorm room, and I will forever cherish the time I was stopped at an intersection next to the Reba McEntire. But then again, who knows what good times were had, only to be forgotten due to extreme boozing?

Soon enough, though, all good things must come to an end. Come May 17, I will be a grown ass woman with a grown ass job, missing the days of her youth. Life just won’t be the same without “”Bear Down, Arizona”” sounding off every day at noon. Let’s just hope that in my grown up life I will come across a fellow alumnus that will “”beer up, bear down”” with me, and we can reminiscence about the great times we had at the good ol’ UA.

So to all the people that helped make those great times — the friends I have had along the way, the boys I kissed, the boys I wanted to kiss but never did, my enemies and everyone in between — bear down and H.A.G.S.

— Mallory Hawkins is a communication senior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.