If I learned anything about life over the past four years, it’s that time escapes a lot easier than I expected.

Time is this intangible but vital part of life we depend on so much, and yet it slips through our fingers like running water.

When I leave Cole Hall Thursday morning after my last final as a college student, I won’t go back to my apartment to prepare for Saturday’s ceremony.

I’m walking straight to the Northern Star office, the place that molded me like clay into the person I’m leaving here as.

I never expected much from getting a job here as a columnist. I didn’t expect to discover ambition burning like a forest fire to become an editor, and I didn’t think I’d find people here who I would come to see as some of my closest friends, but I did.

It’s going to be a hell of a lot harder leaving the Northern Star than leaving NIU. The strangest part is knowing both of these places will keep moving without me and the thousands of students who are graduating with me. That’s one of the hardest truths about moving on.

Over the past four years, I’ve grown and changed more than I ever thought possible. I’ve been chewed up and torn apart by trials of maturity and experience, and pieced back together by the love and support of friends and family I feel I don’t even deserve.

If I can offer you any wisdom — assuming a 22-year-old kid can have much of it — it’s this: Cherish what you’re learning, both in and out of the classroom, and value the experiences you’ve already had and the ones still waiting for you. Before you know it, time will escape you, too.