There is a comforting, unspoken trap that college seniors fall into: We stick to what we know. By your fourth year, your routine is practically chiseled into stone. You sit in the same corner of the library, walk the same routes to avoid the campus wind tunnels, and keep company with the same circle of people. Experimentation feels like underclassman territory. Senior year is supposed to be about cruise control.
However, over the summer I decided to do the exact opposite. I emailed my strength coach and asked to start powerlifting and weightlifting. I joined a powerlifting gym and decided to get serious. Up until a few months ago, my relationship with lifting was built entirely around what was familiar and routine for the track team. Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting were subcultures that existed purely on my Instagram Reels, disciplines dominated by people who casually tossed around loaded bars and threw chalk like confetti. Walking onto a platform for the first time as a beginner wasn’t just intimidating; it was also a bit humbling. You have to be entirely okay with failing publicly, checking your ego at the door, and learning complex techniques from absolute zero.
Yet, as the summer progressed, the gym became my favorite escape. In a college routine dominated by open-ended assignments, abstract career planning, and endless uncertainty about the future, the gym offered refreshing clarity. Either the bar moves off the floor, or it doesn’t. Physics doesn’t care about your resume. Every set demanded total focus, forcing all the background noise of work and post-grad anxieties completely out of my head.
Before long, what started as a casual summer experiment snowballed into a serious commitment. I wasn’t just lifting to stay active. I was training with intention. Fast forward to this past weekend, when I found myself stepping up to the platform at the New Jersey State Weightlifting Championships. Standing at the warm-up area, listening to the clatter of plates and the rhythmic countdown of the competition clock, my nervous system was firing on all cylinders. A few months earlier, I barely understood how to position my grip correctly. Now, I was wearing a singlet (gross), waiting for the judges to call my name, and staring down attempts that once seemed physically impossible.
Stepping onto the platform, in front of a crowd, was an adrenaline rush unlike anything I’ve experienced in college. Three white lights later, I walked away with a state championship gold medal. Standing on the podium was surreal, but the real victory wasn’t the hardware around my neck. It was the reminder that we are never too far along to reinvent ourselves.
Senior year is often described as checking out. Mentally retiring from college before you’ve earned your degree. But I’d argue the antidote to senioritis isn’t forcing yourself to grind harder at the things you’re burned out on; it’s finding something brand new that makes you feel like an excited beginner again.
As seniors, we spend so much time mourning the “lasts” that we forget there is still plenty of room for “firsts.” We convince ourselves that our college identities are locked in, and that picking up a completely unfamiliar challenge this late in the game is pointless. But life doesn’t freeze the moment you hit senior year. Whether it’s loading up a barbell, picking up an instrument, or trying a hobby you swore you had no business doing, say yes to being bad at something until you’re good at it. You might just surprise yourself with what you can lift.
