Letter to my younger self
Written by Maggie Nielsen, an advertising/public relations, German and global studies major
Hi Maggie!
It’s you; just a little older, and hopefully a bit wiser too. Right now, you’re moving to Lincoln, about to start your first year at the University of Nebraska, and (spoiler alert!) making one of the best choices you’ve made to date. But until you get there, you’re staring out the car window, wondering if you’ve made the right choice, if everything’s going to turn out to plan. You’ve always loved a plan — and if I remember right, there’s a crumpled-up version of the 30-year plan you wrote in high school hidden in your pocket; a plan that you have seriously diverted from.
Transferring schools was never in your 30-year plan. But it will be the start of a new plan; of something great.
When you arrive on campus for the first time, it will all feel so overwhelming. You will be surrounded by people in a way you never have; and you won’t fully register them (or at least, not as more than a background for an Instagram post) but there will be giant standing words outside the Union that mean more than you’ve yet to realize.
GRIT
GLORY
Right now, you are in the depth of your grit. Of feeling like you are clawing your way to the semblance of a new plan, your old one in the wind. And day by day, the grit will shallow out and the glory rise up. Soon enough, we will reach a new height of our glory. Soon enough, we will graduate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a Bachelor of Arts in German and global studies as well as a Bachelor of Journalism in advertising and public relations. (Surprise! We’re a triple major!)
The next three years you have ahead of you, Maggie, let me say… they are wonderful. I wish I could give you a play-by-play, spoil all the good moments to the second. But only you can discover them as they come, so I’ll only provide a highlight reel.
The first thing you will realize is how happy you are to be starting an advertising and public relations degree. You will be sitting in the lecture hall of Love Library, in between your back-to-back “Introduction to Mass Media” (JOMC-100) and “Introduction to Advertising and Public Relations” (JOMC-151) classes and think to yourself:
I get this. I love this. These first years don’t realize how lucky they are to be here from the start.
The second big thing will be your best friend, Hana. You will meet her — get this — in your sorority. She will understand your joy in memorizing things about global politics, and in doing so will alleviate the worry that by leaving behind IR, you will never get that joy again. It is from her that you will realize the true impact of the full phrase, of what those words outside the Union stood for:
In our Grit, our Glory.
That is what it means to be a Husker. And when she crosses the graduation stage, when she reaches her glory, you will realize that you don’t have to keep hiding in the shadows of the word “transfer”. That it didn’t matter to Hana, or to Alpha Delta Pi, that they were just like everyone else: rooting for your glory. You realize: why would it matter to anyone else, why have you stopped yourself from rooting for your own glory? (Side note, when Rob in the CAST office tells you that “Transfer is not a dirty word” — listen to him, he’s right.)
This realization, that’s the third big thing, broken up into many smaller ones. You will come out of your self-imposed shadow. You will throw yourself into every, and almost any, possibility. Husker Dialogues needs Conversation Guides? You’ll be there. Your fellow Huskers need to register to vote in Nebraska? You’ll get deputized, and working with the Husker Vote Coalition, you’ll watch as thousands of your peers get registered to vote. PRSSA needs someone to analyze data? You’ve always loved spreadsheets.
You’ll use the skills you learn in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications to work with Hillel, the Jewish Students Association, and Judaic Studies. Alternatively, you’ll use the skills you gain in the College of Arts and Sciences to help lead the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Team at Jacht, the student-run advertising agency. You will use every aspect of your dual matriculation to be your best.
It’s a lot, I know. But we’ve always been that way, and you’d have it no other way. This is the glory of the Husker experience: of taking the opportunity, of running from one end of campus to the other with a smile on your face, of all the people rooting for you. And none of it will be possible, Maggie, without the grit you are going through right now. I get to be happy, nostalgic for my current situation, because of the strength you are giving me.
In your grit. In my glory. In our Nebraska experience.
Sincerely,
Your biggest fan
