President Zaki, Members of the College, and Guests, many of you may know me as a member of your class council, an editor of the Bowdoin Orient, or even as the girl who researched ketamine (don’t worry it was for therapeutic purposes). However, something that few people know is that I’ve given a title to every day of my college experience. Titles can range from little anecdotes that made me smile to the most important part of my day. For example, March 16, 2026 was “Curse My Genetically Weak Gums.” (We’ll come back to this point in a second). I started the titles as a way to catch up with a high school friend, but this daily routine turned into one of the most meaningful practices in my life.
Over spring break as I recovered from gum surgery (hence the example title), I felt quite restless as I was unable to move my mouth all day. This really forced me to sit with my thoughts, something that I’m notoriously bad at. With graduation looming in the distance, a lot of these thoughts were centered around the future, and to avoid them, I grounded myself in the past. For the first time, I read through my old titles one by one from the beginning.
In some ways, it felt as if no time had passed since I reluctantly hugged my parents goodbye, wiping tears as I entered Farley Field House. Yet, I no longer recognized that version of myself. I looked back with perspective and clarity on moments that at the time felt so sweeping. Reading the titles was like rifling through a flipbook of the scenes that shaped me.
In the early days, everything was so new and exciting. From titles like “The Crazy Life of a First-Year During Orientation” to “Nothing like a Six-Hour Lab on a Beautiful Maine Coast Day,” I was in awe of college life and this place I was learning to call home. But in my first year, I also wrote titles like “Navigating My New Normal” which reflected the overwhelm, anxiety, and excitement of starting college. Over time, my titles featured the same people, patterns, and reflections, yet, the way in which I wrote about my days changed. I became the author of my own story instead of a passive observer.
During sophomore year, I wrote, “Making this place feel like home,” as I unloaded my things in MacMillan House. By April, I added, “Today is going to be a good day because I say it is.” And by senior year, I even asserted “this is how to live.” The evolution of my titles reflected my growing agency and security in who I was.
I recently learned about the concept of “sonder,” a term coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Sonder is the concept that each random passerby has their own vivid life, filled with their own ambitions, friends, routines, and worries. It is the realization that all of us have developed our own complex and distinct lives at Bowdoin but have weaved in and out of each other’s—maybe without even noticing it.
In that moment, I recognized that it was you, my fellow authors, each writing your own stories, that fostered our collective growth. In February 2023, I wrote, “It's -41 degrees, but I'm warmed by the people around me,” and that April, “Get yourself some friends that would searchfor you across campus because you weren't home by 1 a.m.” I found those friends, and I hope you have too.
Through my titles, I saw what mattered most throughout the last four years. It was the meals with friends and late-night talks in the living room. It was when I decided to do something spontaneous just because a friend asked me to. It was the laugh I shared with someone I just met. And while you may not have titled your days, you too have had all of these moments that I have made up mine. You have become the author of your own unique story. You transitioned from being overwhelmed by college to shaping the institution. And you all played an important role in each other’s stories. I’ll leave you with the question, what title would you give to this day? What title would you give to the most meaningful days in your Bowdoin experience? I now know standing here that mine will be “Thank You Bowdoin.”
