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As an upcoming graduate of Syracuse University, I’m anticipating a sense of pride when I walk alongside my classmates in my cap and gown. I’ve seen many come to Syracuse as mere students, and it’s satisfying to know I’m leaving as a better person and a burgeoning professional lawyer.

Despite our differences, the class of 2025 shared a common denominator: we all chose SU as home. Some picked it over a laundry list of other accredited universities, while others made it off the waitlist weeks before convocation. On May 11, we’ll all receive our degrees and, for a few moments, will share the same spot in school history.

While my drive home only takes one cup of coffee then two and three turns off of the Pennsylvania turnpike, some students travel from all over the world to attend SU. Meeting classmates from places a multi-hour plane ride away has always made me question why they would trade West Coast sunsets and metropolitan city life for a snowy town off of I-81.

I was lured in by SU’s atmosphere centered around athletics, the well-renowned social life and its perfect spot on the scale between large and small-sized schools. While these attributes surely make SU an appealing place for applicants, attending this school has always felt like more than the sum of its parts.

SU is a school where rejection turns to redirection. Its competitive nature, both inside and outside the classroom, forces students to be exposed to something many young people, myself included, are not always anticipating: the word “no.”

After trying Greek life, I decided I wanted to instead use my time at SU to dive into my academic interests. I set my sights on joining the SU Mock Trial team. I had always been praised for my ability to articulate and my argumentation skills, even having been approached by teachers in high school with recommendations to join the competitive mock trial team.

I couldn’t imagine that my innate talents would fail me at SU during tryouts. Tasked with memorizing a case verdict and prepared to answer intensive questions, I rehearsed for days leading up to MTSU tryouts.

I was cut from the team and encouraged to try again a different year. I felt embarrassed as this was supposed to be something at SU that fit me just right. I allowed the shock of the rejection to sink in, though, and I worked up the courage to ask their leadership how to remain involved.

Eventually, MTSU extended its recommendation for me to join the Trial Advocacy Committee, as an extension of its competitive team. Years later, as a second-semester senior years later, I’m now a chair of that committee. I’ve since solidified my desire to become an attorney through the people I’ve met in that network — despite my initial rejection at the door.

To me, these results were frustratingly foreign. I sat back and wished things were easier in those moments of defeat, wondering when things would actually go my way for once in college. In retrospect, I celebrate the fact they didn’t.

Being told something wasn’t for me made my subsequent personal victories hit harder. Young students aren’t promised success with every chance they take, but the rejections I’ve faced at SU have equipped me to handle the emotions and expectations that follow when I’ve failed, and I’ve learned how to use them productively.

The first, second and third opportunities SU offered me demonstrated a learning climate that grows and refines excellence. I feel far more prepared to succeed in the field of law in the future having experienced failure and the lessons it taught me at SU.

I’m now authentic in my endeavors after overcoming the challenges I’ve faced here, both academically and socially. Entering a competitive field in the legal profession, I feel prepared to not waver even though I might not always come out on top. The exposure to high-intensity mock-workplace opportunities at SU builds me out holistically, demonstrating the importance of balance between winning and losing.

Naturally, right as I’m mastering SU’s curriculum of trial and error, it’s now time to make plans to leave and move on to my next chapter of tribulations. In just a few short weeks, SU’s senior class will gather before friends and family in the JMA Wireless Dome. Reminiscence will overwhelm us as we’re engrossed in the surreal nature of graduating college.

People say these last four years flew by; I disagree. It was barely enough time for me to fail my way into meaningful opportunities and to make lifelong best friends. I’ll be nostalgic, no doubt, and I’ll be sad to leave the place that’s taught me how to fail gracefully, turn around and then learn from it.

Come May, freshman-year roommates and biology lab partners will turn to future bridesmaids and groomsmen. Backpacks will become briefcases. And a home away from home will morph into an annual weekend visit for football games and meet ups with old friends.

While time at SU is part of our own circles of life, it means something more to me. I arrived as a collection of many good parts, and I leave as a well-rounded machine. It doesn’t work out the same for each student, but all I needed from SU was the necessary character-building tools to put it all together when I couldn’t do it myself.

Mary Kerns is a senior majoring in communication and rhetorical studies. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at mgkerns@syr.edu.

Published on March 31, 2025 at 10:07 pm