Fourth Year in Review: A Bittersweet Goodbye

As my time at Whitman comes to a close, I’ve been going back through my old Whittie Wisdom blog posts and reminiscing. In my first year in review blog, I wrote about the ​​guarantee of good things to come. It wasn’t the kind of guarantee that’s given, but the kind that’s made. Whitman laid the groundwork for the “good things,” and I made the most of it by, for example, joining the Interest House Community in my second year and studying abroad as a third year.

In my final year, I kept the momentum going from the very beginning, joining Summer Shakes(peare) for the third year in a row with a role as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Other memorable “good things” from the fall semester included hosting my third KWCW show, Dead Air, eating way too many pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Cleveland Commons and spending one particularly memorable night with other Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse seniors in the local Denny’s until three in the morning as we all worked to finish our capstone projects.

In the spring, I got the chance to visit the inside of the clock tower, checking the most out-there task off my Whitman bucket list. I also made the fateful decision to pursue honors in my major, meaning I needed to extend my capstone into a thesis. As a result, I probably spent more time in the library this semester than every other semester combined, but in the end, I wrote a thesis I’m very proud of (and received honors!). My thesis work even inspired me to consider attending graduate school, something I’d previously dismissed as “not for me.”

While much of my spring semester was taken up by either working on or thinking about my thesis, I still found time to hang out with friends, attend the Renaissance Faire, and go on two Outdoor Program trips in the same weekend! Somehow, I managed to stay mostly out of the water while paddleboarding, but I fell in the Walla Walla River on my canoeing trip.

And now, graduation is upon me. I’ve attended enough awards ceremonies, graduation parties, and department gatherings to make my head spin, and I’ve been collecting stoles and cords like Pokémon cards, but none of it feels real yet. 

To be honest, I’m not sure it will sink in that my time as a Whitman student is over until I’m not headed back to Walla Walla in the fall. While I’m excited to see what the future holds, I’ll miss this place and the wonderful people I found here. As I go out into the post-grad world, I know one thing is certain: Once a Whittie, always a Whittie.

Zoe Perkins ’25 is a Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse major from Hillsboro, Oregon. This will be Zoe’s thirteenth blog post for Whitman, and while some people might find that unlucky, Zoe likes to think of her blogs like bagels: you can’t get just one, you have to get a full baker’s dozen!