By Ben Baxter

“This is not the end. This is the beginning!” Those are the famous words that Coach Nick Saban used in reference to our thirteenth national championship. Ideally, those words apply to us seniors as we graduate and enter into the adult world. But are those words really true?

Well, we have definitely seen our fair share of “ends” these last four or five years at the University. In addition to the end of our football championship drought, we have seen the end of the 24-Hour Diner, cheap parking decals, Bad Ass Coffee Shop (or whatever other names it went by), Mike Shula and Mark Gottfried’s stellar head coaching careers, the continuous dilapidation of Foster Auditorium, Coca-Cola products on campus and reasonably-sized lines in the Ferguson Center food court during lunch time.

We have also seen a large number of “beginnings” here at the Capstone as well. These “beginnings” include our Facebook addictions, a band of comic book-inspired Bama football superfans, inevitable tuition hikes, upscale freshman dormitories, controversial yet popular SGA and U.S. presidential races, new multicultural fraternities and sororities, temporarily lodging Hurricane Katrina victims here on campus, and the largest student enrollment expansion this university has ever seen.

As drastic as some of those Capstonian changes appear, none of them hold a candle to the ends and beginnings that we will experience after our celebratory exodus on May 8.

For me personally, graduation only reminds me that this year’s A-Day was the saddest day of my life. It marked the last time that my friends and I could dress up as flamboyant super fans in the student section of Bryant-Denny. I know that my friends who aren’t graduating will carry the torch proudly into the upcoming seasons, but I will sorely miss the best opportunity that any sports fanatic could ever receive.

What I won’t miss is the fact that many of us have never had to earn our own income or balance a monthly budget. Some of us look forward to this independence, but a few of us wish our mothers and fathers would continue taking care of us.

For many of us, we will be saying goodbye to single life and hello to marriage. Further still, we’ll be casting aside the rowdy behaviors of our youth for the more reserved demeanors of our adulthood.

So is this the end or the beginning? Will our lives be forever turned upside-down? I’m not quite sure. The road to life just isn’t that predictable, but as long as the Crimson Tide wins the Iron Bowl every year, we will enjoy wherever the road takes us.

Ben Baxter is a senior majoring in industrial engineering. He is a former SGA Senator from the college of engineering.