A Final Senior Semester
Written by Victoria Kelly
As I begin writing, I’m seated at the 2024 President’s Commencement Dinner, waiting for speeches to start. I graduate in a matter of days, the pinnacle and end of a challenging, amazing, stressful, growth-filled, and eventful four years. It’s hard to believe that it flew by this quickly, and yet so much has happened. Even just reflecting on the last few months brings back to mind some amazing memories.
January—The March for Life
Hillsdale has a large pro-life student organization appropriately called Hillsdale College for Life. Every year, the club organizes a group to bus to Washington, D.C. to take part in the annual March for Life, and a large number of students and sometimes professors make the journey. I had never been before but decided that as part of my last year here, I would go with my friends to join a cause I personally believe in. After a long homework-laden bus ride, we arrived in D.C., and spent the night. In the morning, I visited Hillsdale’s Kirby Center with some friends who had been on WHIP (Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program) the semester before. After a little more exploring, we joined the rally and the March. I will always value the time spent both with close friends and with other students I rarely talk to on campus united and going out into the world with a common cause.
February—The Edward Everett Prize in Oratory Preliminary Rounds
Every year, the Rhetoric and Media Department hosts a speech competition called the Edward Everett Prize in Oratory. Although I thought I was too busy to compete in my first two years as a student at Hillsdale, I started in my junior year and discovered what I had been missing. This year, I tried again. There were two rounds of preliminary competition, and in my first, I completely blanked. I forgot my speech, and although I got back on track, I had lost all confidence in myself. The other students competing, however, who had watched the speech, encouraged me. They said that they couldn’t even tell that I had been lost. That experience, though terrifying in the moment, was the most valuable part of the experience for me. I knew that I could do improvisational speaking, but I had not known that I could recover from scaring myself by losing something I thought I had memorized. After that success, I’m a little more fearless. (I also made it to finals in March—shoutout to this year’s winner, Emily Schutte, ’26, and the other finalists—Konrad Verbaarschott, ’24; Patrick McDonald, ’26; and Maddie Grace Watson, ’26).
March—The Pi Kappa Delta Biennial Tournament
As my fellow students prepared to go home for spring break in March, I got ready to go the opposite direction of home in New York: Phoenix, Arizona, for the last NPDA (a parliamentary style of debate) tournament I would ever compete in. Accompanied by our assistant coach, recent graduate Emma Sanders, my teammate Ryan Rodell, ’27, and I headed out to try our luck against other teams representing their school’s chapters of the national forensics honorary, Pi Kappa Delta. Even though we had never worked together before, we won the majority of our rounds and learned to build on each others’ strengths. Ryan even talked me into trying another competitive speaking event, Extemporaneous Speaking, that I had never before tried. We had a blast; he came back even more motivated to do more with the team, and I came back with memories of some of the most fun I’ve had in my senior year.
April—Senior Art Show
Among my friends at Hillsdale—and even my housemates—there are students who possess talents and drive that I could never have—in this case, for art. As part of their art major requirements here at Hillsdale, art students join together in groups to host a senior show. Although I was not able to go to the reception on the opening night, I visited the small art gallery nestled in our Fine Arts Building the next morning to visit a show of five students which included three of my close friends. Their exhibits ranged from photography and graphic design to sculpture, watercolor, oils, and even drawing Christian icons. Wandering around the gallery (and writing sincere notes of praise in the guestbooks), I learned all over again how to engage with stories that take forms other than words and how to look at everyday moments. I left not only more convinced than ever before that I have talented friends, but also reinvigorated in the knowledge that every little interaction with nature and with other people has more meaning than words can express.
It’s May now, and the next memories I’ll be forming will likely be related to graduation and last informal events with my friends before we say good-bye, to be reunited sporadically at weddings and to keep up from a distance. There are more memories even than I’ve detailed here—random rollerblading with a good friend, spur-of-the-moment paper-writing sleepovers, and lunches shared with underclassmen far wiser than I am. Yet, these windows into my life over the last few months show just a little bit of how broad the experience of being a Hillsdale senior is and how meaningful even just a few months of my four years have been to me.
Victoria Kelly, ’24, is a proud country girl from upstate New York. On the rare occasion she is not studying or hanging out with all her favorite Hillsdale people, you can find her debating politics, practicing Tae Kwon Do, or swing dancing, preferably outside under the stars.
Published in May 2024