My name is Katie Dwyer, and this blog is an exercise in what I call "productive nostalgia." I decided to write this blog because I love talking about my college experiences, and because I had a very difficult time figuring out what college life should be like during my late high school/ early college years. So I'm writing this blog to my younger self, and to those current students who are seeking a real depth and purpose for their college careers. This blog is mostly targeted at the high-flyers. At the students with drive and ambition and a deep desire to grasp every bit of adventure and knowledge and transformation they can out of their four college years. I want to offer what knowledge I can to help students do that. Many people say that college is the best time in their lives. I hope that's not true of me--I hope that I continue on my path toward ever-widening adventure and opportunity. But I do think that college was the time when I became myself, and when I changed the fastest and with the most fun. And I learned a lot. From salsa dancing to philosophy to how to communicate ideas effectively. Also basketweaving. The point, as I see it, is to emerge from college as your full adult self. That's what I searched for, and that's what I hope others will do as well. With all the passion and joy the world provides.

A Note on College and this blog

College is an amazing time, but is also four years of transition mode, and therefore inherently stressful. No one I know left college without being profoundly changed by the experience, and for almost everyone the changes were for the better. There are tips and “life hacks” to help with choosing a college, passing classes, and gaining valuable (and marketable) experience and skills. But mostly what I hope to offer is a set of stories and ideas, meant to address specific needs. I am not an expert, but I am someone who was quite successful as an undergraduate, and twice now as a graduate student. I know what it is to be lonely on campus, to do poorly in a class, to feel at the top of the world and to be enormously disappointed. I hope to spread the success, and perhaps to commiserate on some of the hard times.