day 48

On Saturday morning, I "graduated" from College Park Scholars. They held a little ceremony for us and our families, which included a fun 3-piece band, some delicious food, and some really nice words from the director of the program, Jim. He had something nice to say about every single person in the program as he handed them their certificate.

I'm incredibly grateful to have been in Scholars for two reasons. The first is that it focused my experience in my first two years at Maryland so much. It made a huge university seem small enough to manage, kept me engaged in community service and activities, and gave me supportive faculty members who knew my name and who I was from the time I was a freshman. Not many people can say that about their experience in their freshman and sophomore years at a University with 35,000 students.

The second, and more important reason that I'll be forever indebted to Scholars is because it's where I met those pretty ladies in the picture up there! The fact that, because of Scholars, I got to live with, learn with, and become best friends with the five of them (plus a few more who weren't there on Saturday!) is amazing to me. That's not to say that I haven't made other great friends outside of Scholars, but I couldn't imagine my life without these girls, and know that without the program, we never would have met.

Oh...! And here's two more pictures of some pretty important people who were there that day :) There were too many good pictures to pick just one for today!