I’ll be the first to tell you that I spent far too many days as the selfish college student, continually pressing ahead regardless of how many hours of sleep, dinner plans and conversations I had to forfeit in the process. I find that university life can only fester this sentiment and continually slants our perspective inward, always eying the next position, internship or academic accolade. Before our eyes, even virtues like service and leadership transform into tyrants to reference in an interview or acceptance speech; we succumb to the idol of GPAs and honor societies, the desire to know and be known. And while I’m not negating any of the hard work I’ve done, I decided that at the end of the day, a LinkedIn profile is a sad pièce de résistance for four years.

While UA has shown me my Achilles’ heel — a tunnel-vision agenda often masked as determination and work ethic — it also presented a rare and unexpected community that goes beyond the cliché of roommates replacing family members. Eventually, I had to learn to practice surrendering my agenda for the sake of the others dearly intertwined with my days, or as my friends like to call it, showing up for your people.

Sure, it’s one thing to be there for the big moments: the birthday cakes, job offers and tulle bridesmaid dresses. But it’s another to be fully acquainted with others’ worlds, remembering that test they had or their friend back home struggling through disease. Showing up looks like editing papers at midnight, driving across the state on a moment’s notice and offering less hasty replies and more phone-down, homework-aside conversations. It means engaging in the mess, asking the hard questions, and immersing yourself in the folds of others’ struggles, not just showing up for rosy lunch dates or photo ops.


And in a world brimming with mediated communication and starving for this type of vulnerability, it’s no small feat. But every second of jumbled chaos, each cross-legged, dorm-room floor chat, teaches us to place our own worries aside to really walk through others’ with them beyond the brave fronts and into the quietest fears. And while it never hurts to see faces in the crowd for your big moments and to jump into hugs at the end of the day, those glimpses of vulnerability offer more than a Facebook profile or internship ever will. They reveal our commonality, our resiliency and our devotion to one another that perseveres even when the rest dies away.

You can’t put a timeline on human beings. Or write a guidebook. Or be prepared for every situation. However, you can enter without an escape plan and consciously decide to remain despite the swirling world of distractions and limitations. It’s something I’m certainly working on, choosing friends over resume lines, conversations over sleep and eye-level moments over a to-do list. But I’m improving all because of those here in Tuscaloosa who bestow moment after moment of undeserved grace despite my hopelessly colligate self-awareness.

And as everyone offers their congratulations for four years well done, I can’t leave without paying homage to those that made it a dense season, allowing me to live not just the length of the past 1,460 days, but the width as well. That means teachers and advisors, mentors and friends; all those who challenged my thinking and gently nourished my growth from the heat of the action rather than the sidelines. All those who showed up for me and nurtured the desire to continue to do the same. 

Allison Ingram is a senior majoring in journalism and marketing. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of Alice and Mosaic Magazines, but her proudest accomplishment is making time to take three-mile walks three days a week with her friends. After graduation, will be moving to New York to pursue a career in the media.