I’m Michelle Callaghan, a second-year graduate student at Villanova University. This is our new column, “‘Cat in the Stacks.” I’m the ‘cat. Falvey Memorial Library is the stacks. I’ll be posting about living that scholarly life, from research to study habits to embracing your inner-geek, and how the library community might aid you in all of it.

Graduation is a happy-sad time. It’s hard to let go of the life you’ve known for what feels like forever. You grow so much in college that you might feel a lifetime has passed between freshman year and graduation, or even first-year graduate school and graduation (which is sometimes less than two years!).

It’s important to let yourself feel both the happy and the sad. You will miss your second home, your friends, the community. You might even miss the classwork! But you accomplished something huge.

Maybe you’re not graduating this year, and that’s okay. The end of the semester, whether you’re a student or work in a university, is a time of endings and new beginnings. Take note of everything you accomplished in the past fifteen weeks, year, four years. You probably don’t realize just how much you’ve done! You know you’ve been stressed, but maybe you don’t take the time to see how much of that stress resulted in real productivity.

You’re a superstar, you know. You’re a Wildcat.

Congratulations for everything–graduation, completing another school year, finishing that final paper, getting a full night’s sleep. For being you!

Cheers, Villanova. Thanks for reading.

This ‘Cat is signing out.

Article by Michelle Callaghan, graduate assistant on the Communication and Service Promotion team. She is currently pursuing her MA in English at Villanova University.