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One of the happiest moments in my life was May 4, dancing along to Just Dance's version of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" with two of my best friends, on a stage in front of our friends and families. At the Residential College (RC) graduation, every graduate has one minute to do whatever they want and can combine their minutes into groups of people. Some students have short personal speeches, others resonant political points. My friends and I weren't the best prepared; we decided what we were going to do for our combined three minutes on the way back from the Big House Commencement. I put my laptop on the floor of the stage, laid the mic beside to pick up the volume, and smiled and sang my way through my last moments as an RC student.

Those three minutes were an accumulation of the highlights I'd experienced in my four years in RC: spontaneity, creativity, friendship, and community. That all might sound pretty grand for what came down to playing Just Dance on a whim, but the RC taught me to see the profound in the small and seemingly insignificant. Besides, Just Dance is really fun.

Occasionally, when I would tell people I was majoring in creative writing and literature, or that I was in the Residential College, the response would be something along the lines of “wow, that sounds like fun.” I'd smile and agree, but there was a clear subcontext where “fun” meant “easy.”

Before starting college, I was under the illusion that higher education should be an uphill battle. Hours spent studying, difficult exams, heavily weighted group projects? That's a given, but I was also taught to pursue a career in what I love. “You'll never work a day in your life,” my Dad says, “if you enjoy your job.”

I don't have a full-time job yet, which is scary to say but also unsurprising for a fresh graduate. No matter the anxieties I face over the future, I will never regret my time at the University of Michigan, especially the RC, because it was fun: fun to theorize on the relationship between art and health in Mind, Medicine, and the Arts, fun to volunteer at the Prison Creative Arts Project's Humanize the Numbers photography exhibit, fun to write an honors thesis in poetry and finally have the feeling I put something hidden deep inside into words.

I get the question often as an RC admissions assistant, “What is the RC?” The response is a lengthy one: “The RC is a four-year learning community with a strong liberal arts learning where students can study any LSA major and study languages in a semi-immersive environment and connect with a wide range of communities across the state and…” but if I had to make it brief, I'd say the RC is the intersection of rigor and fun. It's the place where — in a web of niche classes, great professors and mentors, late nights in East Quad, and endless walks to my friends' places and back — I started to become the brightest and happiest version of myself, a girl who just wants to have fun.

Guest blog author: Elizabeth Wolfe