I hate it when TV shows end.

I hate it when it’s premature like “Happy Endings,” and I hate it when it’s long overdue like “How I Met Your Mother.” I hate it when it ends horribly like “Dexter,” and I even hate it when it ends perfectly like “Breaking Bad.” If you haven’t caught on, I just plain old hate the fact that they end.

Yes, I can catch “HIMYM,” “30 Rock,” “The Office” and even “Happy Endings” in syndication – thank you VH1 for picking up “Happy Endings.”

Yes, I know I can buy the DVD boxset of any of those shows. And yes, I know I can catch most of them, if not all, on Netflix at some point. Regardless of all of those forms of watching it, they all still end. The shenanigans. The jokes. The drama. The lessons. The journey these characters go on together all end.

I grew to love the characters on these shows. I loved relating to Liz Lemon’s awkward life choices on “30 Rock.” I loved partaking in the “HIMYM” inside jokes with the MacLaren’s gang and my friends, and I loved the dynamic in the Dunder Mifflin offices I saw mirrored down at the Collegian.

It’s almost as if all of these shows I love, and always will love, have been preparing me for my own series and eventual series finale.

I was lucky enough to spend four seasons with a stacked cast of characters and situations I could not have written any better on a show about a girl trying to navigate her way through school work, impending adulthood, friendships and life with her group of friends while they also try to put out the paper every night without killing each other.

But even though there were scenery changes here and there, whether it’s a semester abroad in England, a trip to Michigan or Brooklyn to cover a sporting event, there was always a constant fixture in each show.

Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, Pa., MacLaren’s Pub in New York, N.Y., 30 Rock, 30 Rockerfeller Plaza in New York, N.Y.

The Daily Collegian in Amherst, Mass.

I can’t imagine any of those shows without those places just as much as I can’t imagine my life at the University of Massachusetts without the people that filled the walls of that dingy old basement.

Not many people can call “an asbestos filled bomb shelter” their home but I couldn’t imagine my home being anywhere else.

From those that graduated, those that I met this year and those who have been there from the start, I don’t think I could have ever surrounded myself with a better group of talented, fun and supportive people. So many of them have been a part of my favorite episodes of this series I call college, whether it has been in the Collegian or outside of it.

Whether it was packing everyone in my car like clowns and screaming to LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls” as we barrelled down North Pleasant or the late nights we spent down in the office together putting out special issues and then going to Route 9 Diner right after.

But the time has come and now it’s my turn to go off the air and end my series.

I can end on an overdue note, I can end on someone else’s terms or even let someone spoil it for me. Or I can end it on my own terms, the way I have always wanted – feeling content.

I’m content with where I came from and what I became. I’m content with the mistakes I made and learned from. I’m content with the path I traveled down and the one I am headed towards.

I am blessed to say, as of this moment, I am really pleased with how my series finale is turning out.

Now let’s just hope the spin off comes out just as good.

Maria Uminski was the Collegian’s Web Managing Editor and former Photo Editor and can be reached at [email protected].