With the impending date of graduation ahead, I can’t help but get nostalgic over the past three years that I’ve decided to make Appalachian State University my home and write for the paper.
Now is where I impart some wisdom.

Be kind to yourself.

Leave that party after five minutes of arriving, quit your miserable job if it has stopped making you happy, change your major if your stomach churns every time you walk to class.

I wish someone had told me these things before I learned them the hard way.

I write this to you now from the place where I conducted my first interview for The Appalachian, three years ago before the first day of my freshman year. I was scared and young. I was afraid of being myself and I was unsure of who ‘myself’ really was in the first place. I write this now confident, happy, and secure with who I am. But I couldn’t have done it alone.

Thank you to my Mom and Dad who forced me to grow up for the first time in my life.
To the Counseling Center, the place to which I owe my sanity, courage, and happiness.
To The Peel and the poetry community where I was able to find my confidence.

Finally, to The Appalachian and those who have read anything I have written over the past three years: thank you for listening to what I have to say.

The years I have spent working for this paper have been taxing, they’ve been miserable at times, but they have been incredibly rewarding. I hope to go down in history as The Appalachian’s longest lasting intern.

I will leave Appalachian State without a job, with little to no prospects about my future career. But I will be rich in experience, memories, love from the lifelong friendships I’ve created over the years, and that’s really the most important thing.

Casey Suglia, a senior journalism major from Pinehurst, was an intern A&E reporter for the 2014-15 academic year. She was on staff for three years.