Makayla Hickey (she/her) is the Associate Opinions Editor for The Heights. She is from Norfolk, Mass. You can contact her at makayla.hickey@bcheights.com.
London has been a dream of mine since childhood. It was a place I saw in storybooks and movies, dotted with grand palaces and cherry red double-decker buses. Hollywood’s version convinced me that it was the pinnacle of perfection, at least in the eyes of my younger self.
Standing in Maloney Hall on that dull February day, I was overcome with excitement, knowing I would finally get to live out the life 11-year-old Makayla had always dreamed of.
So how can love span both mutual and unreciprocated feelings, encompass romance and platonism, and be both given and felt? By using the word in such a variety of ways, we are simultaneously overgeneralizing and severely restricting love in our language.
It might sound cliche, but the only way I’ve been able to truly move past rejection and stoke personal growth is by viewing failure as a gateway to second chances rather than an excuse to give up.
Your timeline is a work in progress, not a pre-ordained narrative. And you are so much more than a pawn moving between tasks. Appreciate the journey to reaching success, acknowledge the wisdom gained from each of your achievements, and do not be afraid to stray from the path.
The necessity of music as an emotional outlet is indisputable in my opinion, but it typically serves as background noise to the ever-moving world around us. Concerts provide a brief interlude from the onslaught of life’s stressors, allowing us to live life in a pure state of awe and uninterrupted emotion.
For as long as I can remember, the value of kindness has been emphasized in nearly every aspect of my life. “Be kind to others” was scribbled at the top of the easel papers that served as elementary school classroom constitutions.
If you had asked me a year ago to define what home meant to me, I would tell you it was the winding back roads that I spent endless hours driving down with my best friends.
Spring is bittersweet. It marks the end of our academic year and the last few weeks with college friends, but it also symbolizes the turning of a new chapter.
Journaling, once the pressure of perfection was off, came with a sense of security—nobody would have the ability to judge my thoughts.
Although I can hardly believe it, I—like nearly 2,500 other Boston College students—am nearing the end of my freshman year.
