This blog was written by Semester 2 Storyteller, Shubhi.
A little look back for everyone who made it to the end.
It’s the end of the semester. Your sleep schedule is more of a rumour at this point, your laptop has forty tabs open, and at least one is an assignment you submitted three days ago but are still too scared to close.
Over this semester, we’ve written about La Trobe lingo, asking for help, exam season and what happens when all those productivity tips just aren’t working. But I don’t want this one to be another guide.
There’s nothing to fix or plan here. For once, I think we can just look back.
Because somehow, one semester ends and we’re already thinking about the next thing.
So, before you rush off, stay here for a minute.
Remember Week 1 you?
Week 1, you arrived twenty minutes early to a room that turned out to be locked. You read every university email like there might be a test on it. And you said your name, degree and where you’re from so many times it started sounding less like an introduction and more like a script.
Then, without really noticing, things became normal.
You stopped double-checking the room number. You found your usual places on campus. Maybe you stopped rehearsing your question three times before asking it in a workshop.
There was no big moment where you suddenly knew what you were doing. It just happened somewhere between Week 3 and now. Honestly, by Week 11, who’s keeping track anymore?
The weeks nobody saw
A semester eventually becomes a few subjects and marks on a transcript, but that’s obviously not the whole story.
There was the mark that came back lower than you hoped and the five minutes you spent staring at it before deciding you were emotionally ready for the feedback. There might have been a night when home felt particularly far away, whether that’s across a city or across an ocean. Or a morning when you genuinely didn’t want to come to university but did anyway.
None of that appears on your transcript.
It honestly should.
Turned up on a hard day: High Distinction.
And if this semester was a difficult one, I don’t think you need to turn it into some huge lesson either. Sometimes making it through is an achievement in itself.
Then there are the people you picked up along the way.
The classmate you only know by first name and degree, but you’d notice immediately if they weren’t there. The group-assignment teammate replying at 2am, which is either dedication or a cry for help. The friend whose “are you on campus?” text can completely change a long day.
Next semester, timetables will move around again. Some of these people will stay, some won’t, and you probably don’t know which yet.
So maybe actually send that “we should catch up” text you’ve been talking about all semester.
Worst case, they say yes and now you must follow through.
If this is your last one…
For some students, this isn’t just another semester ending.
It’s the last one.
Soon there’ll be graduation gowns, photos and at least one relative asking, “So, what’s next?” before you’ve even had time to realise you’re done.
But I think the part that would get me is the ordinary stuff.
The last “want to grab lunch?” The last walk out of class. The last assignment submission followed by refreshing the page four times just to make sure it went through.
You probably won’t know which ordinary moment is the last until later.
So, take the slightly unnecessary photo. Stay ten minutes longer. Have the extra coffee. Complain about parking one final time.
You’ve earned it.
Before you close the tab
The break is almost here.
You’ll probably spend the first couple of days sleeping and then suddenly wonder whether you forgot to submit something.
You didn’t.
Probably?
But before you start thinking about whatever comes next, give this semester a second.
Not everything that happened needs to have changed your life. Some of it was difficult, some was ridiculous, and some random Tuesday you barely thought about might be the thing you remember years from now.
For now, though, you made it to the end.
And I think that deserves a moment before we move on.
Now go close those forty tabs.
Yes, even that one.