Hello, lovelies! I wrote a bucket list right before I started college back in August 2016, and now it’s time to see how I did. I honestly didn’t look at this very often, so I’m pleasantly surprised to see how much I’ve crossed off. I hope you enjoy.
Original Post– College Bucket List
1.//Make At Least 1 True Life Long Friends
I have made many wonderful friends in college, some of whom I’m sure will be life long. College isn’t the magic friendship land it’s made out to be in movies. I’ve had a close friend group since middle school, so I never sought out to create a new one. I also commuted my first two years of college, so a lot of my closer friendships were established in my junior year when I lived on campus. I have no regrets though. I made a lot of friends through joining clubs, talking to people in class, and introducing myself at parties.
2.//Go To A Concert
I went to three concerts in college, but I didn’t buy tickets for any of them. One of my best friends from high school loves Shawn Mendes and got tickets for two of his concerts for her birthday. She took me with her for both of them. I liked Shawn Mendes’s music, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of his until I heard him perform live. He’s really good! Charlie Puth opened for him in 2017 and Alessia Cara opened for him last year, so I got to hear them perform as well.
The third concert I went to was Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour in August 2018. I’ve been a fan of hers since middle school, so it was amazing to hear her sing live. Unlike the Shawn Mendes concerts, I actually knew the words to most of her songs which made the experience all the more fun.
Camilla Cabello and Charli XCX opened for her.
3.//Have A Fun All-Nighter
I think the only times I stayed up all night were when I was traveling. Not in a fun way. In the “I can’t sleep on airplanes” way. I don’t know about you, but I can’t function without sleep. There were so many fun nights where I mentally calculated how long I could stay out in order to get at least six hours of sleep before getting to class the next morning. I’m still counting this as complete though.
This photo was from my first night in Bangladesh. I had barely slept in 36-hours, but I was on an adrenaline rush the second I landed. I got to see a bunch of my family members again, and it was so much fun. The photo above is with my childhood best friend, Deya, and my cousin, Orin, who was basically my sister growing up. We were up till 4 AM catching up on 5-10 years of our life. I remember that night so vividly because I was physically so exhausted but my brain was keeping me awake. (I went to my mom’s older sister’s house the next day and just crashed).
4.//Finish A Smash Book Specifically For College
A Smash Book is basically a notebook with patterned paper inside. I used one as my journal in high school where I glued in photos, dance tickets, movie ticket stubs, etc. along with journal entries from high school. I absolutely love it, but I never ended up making one for college because this blog ended up being how I documented my college life. I also didn’t get on social media till my senior year of high school (I made my Facebook account in 2015), so I have many pictures documented on Instagram. I might finish it now during quarantine because I did put some things in it. We’ll see.
5.//Get On The Dean’s List
I did this a couple of times in college, but not every semester. It honestly wasn’t something I thought about after getting on it in Freshman year.
6.//Study, Volunteer, or Work Abroad
I’m sad that this one isn’t complete. I did go abroad multiple times during college, but never through school. Studying Abroad was never really an option because of my brother, so this was more of a pipe dream when I wrote it. I got an opportunity to volunteer at a special needs school in India last winter break, but the timing just didn’t work out. I’m not super upset about this because I know that I’ll volunteer abroad eventually. It just didn’t happen in college.
7.//Go To A Football Game
Lol…no. I am super not a football person, but I was willing to go to a game. The thing is that I didn’t want to spend money and I went home every weekend for work and for my family. It just wasn’t worth it to me to drive back and forth again on a Saturday. (I did that for other things with my friends, but not for Football.)
8.//Write Something For The Campus Newspaper
I joined my university’s Her Campus chapter, which I think completes this goal. I wrote a bunch of articles for them last year. I definitely put more effort into my blog posts, but here’s the link if you want to read what I wrote for them.
9.//Go On A Road Trip With My Friends
I grew up going on road trips with my family at least 2-3 times per year, and that hasn’t really changed. Most of my travel in college consisted of solo trips, but I did take a weekend trip up to South Carolina with my friends in November 2017 to attend a book festival. That trip was the first of several trips I took at the end of that year, and I wrote a whole blog post about it. We stayed in a cheap motel with three of us to a bed and ate Chik-Fil-A three times in one day. It was great.
Related – YALL Fest Recap | Charleston, SC Trip 2017
10.//Travel To A New Place Every Year
I’m happy to say that I completed this. I traveled to both a lot of new countries and a lot of new states. Some of the new places I visited were Smoky Mountain National Park, Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, and Ann Harbor. I also visited Bangladesh, multiple countries in Europe, Mexico, and went to Canada twice. I started traveling internationally when I turned 20, and it’s easy to forget how many places I’ve been in just two years. It’s kind of amazing.
11.//Backpack Europe
I’ve mentioned this so many times, but I went to Europe for the first time last summer. It was so much fun. I made amazing friends and traveled through 15 countries. Easily one of the best decisions I made in my life. I’ll link the travel diaries below.
- London, Paris, & Swiss Alps | Travel Diary #1
- Florence, Rome, & Venice | Travel Diary #2
- Croatia, Slovenia, & Hungary | Travel Diary #3
- Poland, Prague, & Germany | Travel Diary #4
- Copenhagen, Amsterdam & London | Travel Diary #5
12.//Live In A Dorm
I almost didn’t do this and changed the goal to “living in an apartment” because when I was transferring, I was looking at apartments. I ended up finding a dorm that was cheaper than living in an apartment, and I’m really glad I did. I have the rest of my twenties to live in an apartment before buying my own house. Those two years were the only times in my life I would’ve been able to live in a dorm, and it was an experience I’m glad I had. I basically lived in the dorm in Dear White People because mostly people of color lived in this one dorm in our predominantly white university (I’m definitely going to write a post on that soon), and it was kind of awesome. I’ll link my dorm tour below. I love how I decorated it.
Related – Dorm Room Tour
13.//Take Advantage Of The Gym
If you’ve been following along these past four years, you know that I became a gym person in college. I didn’t exercise at all in high school and wanted to start. My mindset was that my tuition is paying for this gym, so not going to the gym is a waste of money. It was the first push I needed to become a gym person. I took the free workout classes and loved them. I took them almost every day from Monday through Friday. The workout classes weren’t free at the university I transferred to in Junior year, but at that point, I had learned how to work out on my own. There were multiple gyms on this campus and there was literally one right next to my dorm. Instead of going to the big recreation center, I’d walk two minutes to go to the smaller one. It was quite convenient.
Related:
- A Practical Guide To Working Out Regularly In College
- My Current College Workout Routine (Freshman Year)
- Summer Workout Routine (2017)
- My Current College Workout Routine | Fall 2018
14.//Write A Letter To My Senior Self
I don’t think I did this. And if I did, I have no idea where it is. That letter would be funny to read because Obama was president when I wrote this bucket list, so my predictions for 2020 would be completely off. Even things like gas prices or movies that had just come out would be fun to read about.
15.//Eat At As Many New Restaurants As Possible
I did this all the time, both in Atlanta and in Athens. Probably not as often as most because I tried not to eat out a lot to save money, but I did go to a lot of different restaurants.
16.//Watch As Many Shows At The Fox Theatre As Possible
I went to quite a few shows at the Fox Theater. I saw Finding Neverland and An American in Paris in 2017. I watched The Lion King and Rent in 2018, and I watched Waitress in 2019. I also watched Phantom of the Opera in London last year and was going to watch Wicked in New York in March. I continually fulfilled this goal these past few years. I would literally by the most inexpensive tickets and sit in the back seat. It was totally worth it because I could watch a Broadway show for under $30 sometimes.
17.//Participate In A Campus-Wide Tradition
I can’t think of one right now, but I’m sure I did a few. I made sure to go to all the Homecoming Events every year and take advantage of all the free stuff.
18.//Take A Class That Has Nothing To Do With My Major
I took so many classes unrelated to my major. One of them ended up turning into my minor. I took Asian-American Literature, Religious Studies, Theater, Multicultural Perspective of Women in the U.S., and a bunch more. I even took more calculus classes even though I didn’t need them because I’m such a math nerd. I highly recommend taking different types of classes because you’ll never get the opportunity again. It’s better than rehashing content you’ve already learned in high school.
19.//Travel To Bangladesh
This was a big deal because I had never visited Bangladesh before (for a multitude of reasons). The end of 2017 was definitely the start of my travels because I road tripped to South Carolina with my friends, then rode a plane for the first time to go to Orlando, then flew to Bangladesh alone two weeks after that.
I wrote about this trip already, so I won’t go into too much here. Everyone thought my parents were crazy for letting their daughter go to Bangladesh alone, but I had a great time. It was honestly a lot more fun that. I got to explore different parts of the country, meet my family, and eat a lot of very good food. And there’s really no way to describe the feeling you get visiting the place you are from for the first time.
Related:
And I got to meet my grandmother in person for the first time, which was the biggest reason I wanted to go.
20.//Watch A Campus Theater Production
I watched two campus theater productions in my Freshman year. I watched Arcadia by Tom Stoppard at one of my friends’ college. The three of us read it in AP Lit in high school and wanted to see it in person. (It was hilarious) I also watched The Rose Tattoo by Tenessee Williams for my theater class. Both were great. I’d also go to the Rocky Horror Picture Show every October, which is a Halloween tradition I’d love to continue.
21.//Visit My Friends Who Attend Other Colleges
I did this all the time.
22.//Continue Blogging
Well, I’m still here four years later, so I’d count this as complete 🙂
23.//Become Really Involved In A Club
The two clubs I’m thinking of here are Her Campus and Women’s Glee Club. I’ve already talked about Her Campus, an online magazine I wrote articles for. I haven’t talked about Women’s Glee Club. This club was actually a class, so I got college credits for the weekly rehearsals. It was full of music majors and I was by far one of the worst singers, but I enjoyed it so much that I joined again the following semester. I didn’t even have to audition again because they knew I was an Alto 1. I sang in a few concerts. We were supposed to sing the national anthem at one of the baseball games or something this spring but coronavirus happened. I loved the club and would do it again.
24.//Attend A College Party
I attended many parties throughout college, but it wasn’t a frequent thing for me because I drove back to Atlanta every weekend. The definition of party is so variant now-a-days. I went to a house party with one of my friends with over sixty people, and she called it a dinner. The one pictured below is from a party where a guy bungee jumped off of a tree.
To be honest, I preferred smaller get-togethers. My favorite times were definitely when I hung out at my best friend’s apartment past midnight every Tuesday. There was also this one semester where I went to watch the Bachelor (a show I never watched) with a bunch of girls every Monday and we’d do homework on our laptops while making fun of how ridiculous it was.
25.//Go On A Spring Break Trip
I went on two Spring Break trips. The first one was in my Sophomore Year to Toronto, Canada. I remember how nervous I was to book my first international ticket by myself (My grandpa booked my ticket to Bangladesh), but booking tickets has become a lot less nerve racking over time. This trip was kind of last minute (as many of my trips tend to be) and stemmed from a text conversation in my biology class. (I’ll link the post below). I got to visit one of my cousins and my childhood best friends. I went to Niagara Falls and explored Toronto. It was great.
Related:
In my Junior year, I took a solo trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. That was my first time going to a theme park alone, and I highly recommend it. I had a great time and got to hang out with my cousins who live down there. I also did the phone interview for the internship I had that summer. I remember running around the yard with my 9-year-old cousin playing Avengers while my grandmother (great-aunt?) was gardening, when I got the phone call. (I wasn’t told about the phone interview, by the way. This was a follow up after I sent in my application). I asked him to call back in ten-minutes and did the interview pacing in the guest room. As you already know, I got the internship.
Anyway, here are the links to the related blog posts:
The Spring Break trip for Senior year was to New York, but that’s been postponed.
26.//Become A Regular Somewhere
There was a Thai restaurant in Athens that I loved where the owner began recognizing me. I also started going to the Starbucks in the student center every week this year to blog and do homework, and the barista recognizes me. He was the nicest guy ever and always asked if I wanted a chocolate croissant because I’d order them frequently. He would call out my name if we passed each other outside or at the gym after he learned it. This wasn’t just a me thing. Everyone loved him because he was the happiest guy ever. There are posts praising him in the university’s “Overheard” Facebook page.
27.//Go To Every Big Tourist Attraction In Atlanta
I definitely didn’t go to all of theme. There are a few museums I would’ve loved to visit, but I’m still crossing this off because I visited attractions pretty frequently when I went to school Downtown.
28.//Take A Disney Trip With My Friends
This was one of my favorite trips from college. I really want to go back soon. My friend Kat did the Disney College Program in Fall of 2017, so I flew down to Orlando the first weekend of Thanksgiving Break to visit her. This was actually my first time on a plane (that I can remember. I went on a plane when I was younger) and I was also flying alone. Since then, I’ve been on a dozen more flights alone, so there has been some growth in that area.
We went to all four parks in one weekend. We spent Saturday at Magic Kingdom and Epcot, then spent Sunday at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. It was such a fun weekend. I’ll link the recap posts below. I spent a few days after that weekend in Orlando hanging out with my cousins.
Related:
29.//Take 1,000 Photos
I’ve definitely surpassed this from my travel photos alone, but I wish I had done a better job at taking pictures of my day-to-day life. I don’t take and/or post photos every time I go out with a friend and do things, but I wish I had because it would’ve been nice to have more documented.
30.//Graduate (Duh!)
Complete! I am officially a college graduate. I actually got my diploma in the mail a few days ago 🙂
Well, that’s it for now. I managed to cross the majority of the things on this list off. I guess my next step is to work on my 25 Before 25 List.
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What was on your college bucket list? What were you able to cross off?