It has been enjoyable to watch you grow together as individuals and as a group. The theme you helped carry throughout the year—FINISH—is apropos to your time here. You have finished a journey that has taken you through research, shadowing doctors from St. Louis to Mexico, working high finance in Chicago, bungee jumping in New Zealand, designing football helmets, beating nationally-ranked teams, taking leadership roles in student government and fraternities, picking up advanced degrees while playing two sports, making a difference through support of the other sports teams on the courts, to climbing Pike’s Peak.

This school year started with students protesting the Student Technology Fee rate hike. As the year progressed, tensions cooled as Student Technology Services backed off and wireless internet gradually became accessible around campus. October brought racism and other forms of discrimination to the forefront of campus as a student’s car was vandalized with a slur.

My friends will tell you that I am a pretty boring person. I have never been drunk out of fear of making a decision I will regret or embarrassing myself more than I would otherwise.

The most notable thing about the fall 2007 TV season is how few of the shows that premiered remain, but then again, that happens every year.

So you dropped the ball on dinner reservations for graduation. Maybe your parents have been hounding you for weeks and you just ignored them (in which case you’re really in trouble) or maybe you didn’t even think about it until all of your friends started talking about the reservations that they made two months ago.

The first version I wrote of this column was unapologetically sarcastic, an exercise in self-mockery that used the phrase “this is SO college” as refrain and lamented the lack of both Nietzsche and Natural Light in my life next year. It was reflective of what I found easiest to say and what, I figured, an audience of equally sarcastic and sentiment-avoiding Wash. U.

The year the Class of 2011 entered Wash. U.—2007—was like most years in the movies: It had unbelievable highs and inconceivable lows. The top-grossing movie was “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which many thought (and hoped) would be the last film in the series. Alas, another was made, and it’s being released on the same day as Commencement—May 20.

Stay inspired. Two words, four syllables. The best advice I’ve ever gotten about life in the real world. My four years here have left me with a fiery idealism and burning restlessness to approach this canvas we call earth and beautifully paint a piece of it. I hope your education has done the same.

Are you sick of waiting around for graduation with family members invading your personal space? St. Louis may not have Times Square or the Golden Gate Bridge, but it still has plenty of attractions. Scene has selected four locations to entertain them and keep the pressure off of you.

The year started with the University’s largest-ever incoming class and the further transformation of the South 40.