Earlier this week, sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by markers, crayons, and colored pencils, my roommate and I took part in, what some would call, a sacred college tradition — drafting the Senior Year Bucket List.
Technically, we should have been working on assignments or doing something more productive with our time. Instead, we were debating whether this or that deserved to make it on our intensely cultivated list.
My roommate Claire and I have lived together since day one of freshman year. That’s four consecutive years of coexisting. First, we were crammed into a dorm on the second floor of Davis Hall, navigating those cinderblock walls and twin XL mattresses; then, we moved into the Residential Towers feeling like seasoned upperclassmen because we had a slightly newer view. And now, we settled into our second year living off-campus in a real apartment where we actually have to clean our own stove. We’ve seen each other through 8 a.m. exams, cooking experiments, mid-semester breakdowns, and the quiet triumph of surviving midterms.
So when it came time to write our final college checklist, the stakes felt weirdly high. Freshman year, a college bucket list sounds like a movie script. It’s all grand gestures, rowdy traditions, and unchecked ambition. You want to attend every single sporting event, join six clubs you’ll drop after two weeks, and pull legendary all-nighters just to say that you did. You think the magic of college is hidden in the giant milestones.
Looking at our list now, halfway through September of our final year, to me it looks nothing like what 18-year-old us would have written. Sure, there are a few classic campus staples we still had not crossed off: sitting on Babbio with the perfect view at sunrise, taking photos at the landmarks we walk past every day without noticing, and finally visiting the Hoboken restaurants that we always claim we’re “too busy” to walk to.
But the items that took up the most ink weren’t about campus glory. They were intensely domestic, specific events between two people who know the lease on their shared life is running out. Our list included things like: host a movie night for friends before everyone scatters, go line dancing like we always said we would, go sledding and have a snowball fight this winter, and spend an evening doing karaoke just for fun.
That’s the paradox of senioritis. We spent the last three years in an endless sprint of surviving labs, racing to meetings, and constantly bracing for the next academic hurdle. We always operated under the assumption that there would be another semester to slow down. Another spring to sit and tan on the Schaefer lawn. Another fall to explore the neighborhood. Now, the calendar has stopped playing along. The finish line is no longer an abstract concept — it’s a date circled in May.
Drafting a senior bucket list with someone who has witnessed every version of your college self isn’t just about chasing novelty. It’s an exercise in paying attention. It’s admitting that the things we’ll miss the most aren’t the dramatic milestones, but the background noise, the morning rush in our tiny bathroom, the synchronized waking up for classes, and the shared realization that we have grown up in these four walls.
We might not check off every single bullet point before graduation day. But as long as we’re making the effort to pause, look around, and share the ride, I think we’re right on schedule.
