Dear future self,

It is my second week at college and there are so many emotions going through my mind. I am so excited to start my first year at Longwood. I hope you are reading this letter with pride knowing that you accomplished everything you dreamed and more.

For starters, I am hoping you took advantage of all the amazing opportunities that Longwood has to offer. Please tell me you still have the strong desire to be a labor and deliver nurse like we did in freshman year. Did you get outside of your comfort zone and take hard classes? I want to know if you have continued to stay as proactive as we were the first week of college. I hope you have made an influence with your education in your nursing career. One big thing I hope you take with you is to remember to have fun because college is more than just an education, it’s a new chapter.

Aside from academics, I want to know if you got involved at Longwood. I know the first couple of weeks of college we were timid about clubs and Greek life, but I hope you did join some sort of organization. I hope you have explored Farmville because it truly is a beautiful town. Did you go to all the basketball games like we hoped to? I hope you made lots of new friends and decided to move on from the boy from high school. New friends come with time so as long as you chose to be patient, I am sure by the time you are reading this you are filled with so many amazing friendships. I can trust that you chose to embrace all the challenges that were thrown your way. All the experiences you have faced along the way has built you into the incredible nurse we had planned to be. Remember that college is such a beautiful thing, it is supposed to help us grow and find our own independence.

Overall, I hope you stayed true to yourself. I hope you took advantage of the clubs, social events, and even academic activities. This journey should’ve helped you gain a better outlook on life, and it is my wish that you take everything you gained from Longwood University and carry it with you forever. I have no doubt that by the time you read this you will be working twelve-hour shifts helping mothers deliver their sweet babies.

With love,

Present Kristen

Dear future Autumn,

I’m not really sure how to start this, writing to my future self feels kind of awkward. There’s so many “what ifs”. I’ll start off with the fact that I hope you’re living a life that feels right, not one that just looks right. And I hope you’re reading this shaking your head, wishing you could go back in time to tell me that it was all worth it. I hope that you’ve continued to be courageous and steadfast even in the darkest of days. But most of all, I hope you haven’t changed. I hope you still find joy in the little things like the sitting in silence in the common area with your roommates with the occasional giggles from something we saw on our phones or going to the gym to make awful attempts at shooting a free throw with Lincoln, Quinn, and Anthony or going out on late night walks and trying to find the planets among the stars. Speaking of Quinn, we had some awesome roommates our freshman year! They sure did make college more bearable, along with Lincoln and Anthony. I plan on trying out for the softball club team, I’m confident I can make the team, if not I’ll be a little disappointed but it’s better to say I tried and failed then I didn’t try at all, am I right! I hope you continue to try out for the team, and I hope you made the most out of everything. I hope you go out whenever you get the chance to and explore new connections with people instead of staying within your roommates. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure where or who I’ll be in four years, so I hope you’ve at least accomplished graduating and going into grad school. That’s all I ask. You don’t have to have everything figured out, life can be so unpredictable. All I ask is that we become successful enough to live a stable life and help dad out whenever we can!  You should be entering grad school right about now, now that I’m thinking about it. Are you still planning to major in pre-med? Are you still hoping to become a psychiatrist? Or have you gone down a different route? Maybe into a different field of being able to help people with mental disorders? Either way, I know any choice we make will be the right one for us.

With lots of love, your freshman self

  In four years, I plan on being a speech pathologist assistant which requires a bachelor’s degree. And later on, go back to school for the graduate program to then become a speech pathologist. And I personally want to work with children or young adults either in the school setting or in an actual office because I feel like I could find my job more enjoyable with that age group than I would as an adult and the elderly and children are always more exciting and funnier to work with. And I would probably later on after getting my master’s in communication sciences and disorder I would later on get a minor or major in social work because that was my second option and have gotten to know a lot of people in that major and learned a lot about it and would enjoy that as a second future career. I hope I have an exciting experience at Longwood through all four years like I have had already. And I found myself a group of people along with joining a lot of clubs including sign language, a few Christian ones and maybe later on being a manager for a team at longwood because I was managing in high school for the baseball team but also doing some volunteer work for the Farmville community. And also minor in American sign language and also possibly get a degree to later become an interpreter.  And I hope I get to be able to have a lot of hands-on experience with my major along with getting to assist children. Because for my major to me my main focus would be being able to help children but also getting to work with them.  And I’m more excited about what I could do with having a degree in American sign language and where that could lead me.

Dear Future Me,

I’m writing from the first chapter of your Longwood story. This week’s readings reminded me that reflection isn’t just about looking back, it’s about writing forward, like leaving breadcrumbs for the person you’ll become.

Here’s what I hope you’ve built by the time you graduate: a strong foundation in psychology, not just through classes but through real experiences. I hope you’ve worked closely with professors on research that made you curious about how the mind copes with trauma, stress, and resilience. Maybe you even presented at a conference or published in a student journal. I want you to be proud of the questions you asked and the ways you tried to answer them.

I hope you got involved on campus beyond academics. Join Psychology Club or Psi Chi and surround yourself with people who are just as fascinated by human behavior as you are. Volunteer, too,whether that means helping at campus wellness events, supporting first responders through mental health initiatives, or finding internships that connect theory to practice. These experiences will help you grow into the therapist you’ve always imagined becoming.

I also hope you didn’t just push yourself academically but cared for yourself personally. Use your accommodations without hesitation, go to counseling if you need to, and build a support system that reminds you you’re not alone. College can be overwhelming, but you’ll get through it by leaning on others as much as they lean on you.

And please, make memories outside the classroom. Late-night study sessions that turn into laughter, walks across campus when your brain needed a reset, friendships that became family, and moments when you realized you belong here.

If you haven’t done all this, that’s okay, life is a draft, not a final copy. Revise as you go. What matters most is that you leave Longwood with confidence in who you are and excitement for who you’re still becoming.

— Me, Week One

Hello future self, I just wanted to take a moment to remind yourself of your own hopes and dreams and also say I hope you have a fun adventure here at Longwood and enjoy your time while you are here in college. I hope and believe that you can achieve grades and do all the work and remember it is just one day at a time, and you will get through it all. College can be a little overwhelming, and it is essential to focus on it at the present moment and time. I know you are able to excel in all your classes and enjoy them while you’re at it. There are so many life lessons to learn in college, so focus, and you can set yourself up for an amazing future.  Some things I hope you do while you’re here are joining the soccer and basketball club teams. Also, in your four years, try to attend as many possible events around the school. Mom has always said it’s the easy and best way to meet new people and maybe even new friends. I hope you can find the right things and still be comfortable, like attending a food drive on the campus or even continuing your start to find a relationship with Jesus. Also, I just hope you are able to find that Ryan Homes internship and hopefully continue to become a project manager. I also hope you are able to maintain a strong relationship with both Justin and Ahmari. You have known Ahmari for so long, so that would be amazing and Justin has helped you so much in these first weeks of being at Longwood. One last thing that I hope you have done that doesn’t really have to do with school in general, but it still matters a lot and that is continuing to help people and don’t let anyone be alone. I promise it will help in the long run and nothing you do will go unseen because the lord is always watching on you.

Dear Furture me,

I hope to attend medical school in the next four years. It is a long and hard road to get into med school, with a lot of sleepless nights. I know that I can do it if I put my mind to it. To my future self, I hope that we stick with it until the end and are still happy in the future. It is currently relaxed, but I am sure you have faced many challenges and continue to have these problems. However, I know that you can do it because you are not a quitter. I hope that you will find your passion for helping people and never hate your job. If there is one thing I do not want, it is to be in a job where I hate waking up and going in. I hope that you have enjoyed your time at college and have contributed to the community during your time here. The community here, as I have already observed, is a place where everyone is accepted for who they are. I hope that you help people who are struggling in any major and get involved with the people of tomorrow. Helping people is why we wanted to go into pre-med, so please do not be afraid to help someone who is struggling because that was you once. Just remember why you wanted to go into pre-med, because you wanted to help change people’s lives for the better. I hope that I was involved in the drama department and different internships in the pre-med field. I hope that you helped backstage in drama for whatever they needed, and I hope that these internships give you light on what you have to do. By now, you probably have an entire plan of what you want to do, but please remember the people that were there at your lowest. I hope for great things.

Sincerely,

Cody