She swiveled towards me in her chair as I held my breath on the other side of the desk, waiting for her words to designate my undergraduate fate.

“Your thesis,” she said, “It’s good.”

The entire world changed color. I saw rainbows. I almost melted into a puddle of “happy” and “WTF” on the floor. I may not have a planned future or a job or even job prospects, but by God I had written my thesis and it was “good.”

Flash forward to a couple weeks later, and my advisor emailed me saying that my thesis had received HONORS. I pretty much peed myself and then exploded into a million little pieces.

You’ve seen the seniors in the Newlin Room, furiously typing, furiously researching, furiously editing, or just generally looking furious and haggard, surrounded by papers, books and caffeine.

And its funny—I thought to myself after I had turned in my final draft—why should this even matter? In the long run, its just going to be a paper I wrote in college. It hasn’t helped me get a job so far and it’s certainly not making me any money, so why do I care? I think everyone asks this question during junior year (hell, maybe even their sophomore year if you’re an overacheiver): why in the world do I need this thesis thing to graduate?

Well, over the past few months—yes, months—that it has taken me to research, write, edit, and finally, let go of my thesis, I have learned something…it’s not really about the product as much as it is the process.

I mean, yes, the product is what your ultimate grade reflects, but that product is reflective of the process you took to get there.

Shakespeare said, “To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.” And yes, while I realize many senior English majors would like to tell Mr. Shakespeare to “suck it” at this point in the semester, we cannot deny that he’s right.

I remember my first thesis proposal getting soundly rejected. I almost cried in someone’s office. I felt like I had been run over a bus. But, three proposals later, I found something that actually worked.

I remember getting my first chapter back, looking at all the red marks therein, and saying, “shit” on the phone with my mom. I rewrote the whole thing over Christmas break.

I remember finally reaching the minimum page requirement and thinking, “YES! I made it!”

I remember waiting anxiously for OIT to give me back my poor, sick laptop while I thought, if this dies on me, I will die another thousand deaths as I follow it into electronics hell and make it pay for swallowing my second and third chapters.

I will always remember the awesome, encouraging advisors I had, whose opinion I both feared and respected, whose judgment was, thankfully, always constructive.

I don’t really remember the night after I finished my thesis, but I’ve been told it was quite the party, and there are pictures to prove it.

And so, the thesis, the veritable monster you will all have to face, is nothing scarier than a steep hill you must climb and, upon ascending, will conquer.

In the end, as I said, it really isn’t about the paper. While my extensive knowledge of social media and artists may or may not help me in the workplace, my ability to get back up after falling will. My determination to finish, my inability to accept less than excellence, and my sheer dumb luck that has surrounded me with amazing people are the things that have already and will continue to make me successful.