North Carolina A&T:  Home of questionable cafeteria food, dedicated partygoers, frustrating administrative services, and some of the most interesting people you may ever meet. How I miss thee already. 

It’s been four long years and I’d be lying if I said I’m not ready to leave, but I enjoyed my time here and I like to keep my goodbyes as short as possible. 

My experiences in Aggieland have been both educational and entertaining.  Since freshman year, I feel I’ve been able to enjoy almost all the pleasures that A&T has to offer its students and some of the headaches, too.

I’ve had the opportunity to see Flavor Flav dance with the band in the halftime show during “The Greatest Homecoming on Earth” and see A&T make national news over the controversy of Gucci Mane performing at the homecoming concert. 

I’ve seen students getting lap dances in the caf on nights when music was played and I’ve seen people who don’t even attend A&T show up in some of their cleanest clothes just for Wing Night.  I’m even proud to say that I was a student of a HBCU when the first Black president of the United States was elected, even though I didn’t get the chance to jump into the fountain or dance on the cars of complete strangers with my classmates in all the excitement.

I can say that as I come to the end of my undergraduate experience I will probably miss the free house parties, random cookouts, Halo parties and of course my friends who have become more like family to me over the years, including my coworkers at the Register, most of all.  By the time I return to Aggieland, no longer as a student, but as an alumni I will probably also miss the benefits of paying a small athletic fee to watch the football team lose instead of the full price of a ticket.

As I begin my career, I will always remember the professors who drilled AP style, history, and too many formulas to remember into my mind from my earlier years coming to the university. 

I will remember my friends who supported me, annoyed me and prayed for me, and even those who put me in some pretty awkward positions at times. 

I plan to take everything that I have learned and not only use it to advance in my career but also compound on it to better myself.

In the time I’ve spent here, I have had the chance to not only meet people from all walks of life but to also learn more about my own culture and history.  Coming out of an HBCU rich in Black history and centered in a community with so much history of its own has truly been a rewarding experience for me because, as the saying goes, you can’t know where you’re going without knowing where you’ve been.

To all of my family at A&T, student and faculty alike, I wish everyone the best. I really don’t know any other way to close my farewell to A&T except with one last enthusiastic “Aggie Pride!” 

• Marcus Thompson