I left Amherst in December after finishing my undergraduate career at the University of Massachusetts in three and a half years. I can’t say that finishing early was the plan right along. In fact, attending UMass wasn’t either.

Thanks to my neurotic, helicopter parent of a Jewish mother, I first visited the UMass campus my sophomore year of high school. I know, right? Truth be told, it was nothing like what I expected when I imagined the quintessential college campus. I’d be remiss to say that UMass is as beautiful as Amherst College. We know it isn’t. Yet, it has a certain charm that I still can’t quite put my finger on.

So, after a long battle with my parents (that I lost) over going to a private university, I wound up in the concrete jungle that is Southwest. Although, it’s far better looking now than it was when I was a freshman, I still hadn’t imagined living in dorms like Cance, Kennedy or Prince when I first shipped off.

All things considered, I enjoyed my time at UMass. I made a lot of different friends; with some of whom I’ve already cut ties and with some of whom I expect to be friends for the rest of my life. I didn’t finish early because I couldn’t stand the thought of being in Amherst for another second. In part, it was an accident. Like I said, I have a neurotic mother. After I contracted swine flu, bronchitis and pneumonia my freshman year, I didn’t perform as well in my classes as I had hoped. Rather than deciding it was something I couldn’t control, my mother urged me to take summer and winter classes to boost my GPA and to throw myself into internships to gain experience.

Over time, it looked like I was going to graduate early even though I hadn’t intended to do so. When I really sat down to think about it, it came to my attention that I was ready to move on. I was ready not because I was bored in Amherst (although, it can be a little hard to bear in February), but because my experiences had molded me into the kind of person who could take on change.

A little anecdote on my former archnemesis, change:

When I used to try to explain how much I despised change, I would tell this now embarrassing story about myself. When I was 5 or 6 (for the purpose of this story, I’ll say 5), I was so upset with the idea of losing 1996 that I cried and said I hated 1997 and I wasn’t ready for everything to be different. Truth be told, I’ve hated New Year’s my whole life. Some people have photographic memories. I’ve always had a strange kind of memory. I remember things by year as if each year is its own box. For that reason, it’s been difficult for me to pack away those boxes and put them in the attic. It felt wrong – as if I was somehow doing each year an injustice by moving on and growing up. Nostalgia has always been a powerful feeling for me.

Yet, after a brief time at UMass, I came to know myself a bit better. I came to be the kind of person who not only is no longer apprehensive about change, but actually excites at the thought of it. I’m a creature of habit, yes. That will likely never alter, but things don’t seem so deathly frightening now.

When I left home for UMass in the fall of 2009, it was one of those scary, exciting changes happening in my life. Except – I hate to say this – I wasn’t terribly excited. I had spent my senior year of high school acting like I was ready and saying I was excited to leave New Jersey in the dust, but I lied.

This is why it came as such a shock to me that I found such a safe haven in UMass. My experiences at UMass – and especially at the Collegian – taught me to ride the wind a little bit. Good things come when I take chances and make changes. You know how our mothers always say something like “You should have listened to your mother” when things don’t go our way? That saying is right.

The minute I got to UMass and hung my iconic John Lennon black and white poster on my wall, my mother called me and told me to go down to the Collegian offices and sign up. I didn’t listen. I was petrified. Of what, I have no idea. It took me until my junior year to finally bite the bullet and go to a meeting.

Since then, I haven’t looked back. Yes, I left UMass in the dust, but I did so because it readied me to. For that, I will always be thankful.

Dane Feldman was an assistant Arts editor and can now be reached at [email protected].