Whether it was your first, third, or second-to-last, this semester was hard. On all of us. For the past few weeks of school, all I heard was a multitude of forfeits:

“I’m so done.”

“I can’t do it anymore.”

“I dropped the ball this time.”

“Jesus take the wheel.”

“I’m giving up.”

And I’d be lying if I said some of these words never escaped my own mouth.

The end of a semester is for tying up loose ends – which, in theory, sounds pretty simple. But after the past 18 weeks, our hands are cramped, our fingers are numb, and our nails are so bitten that we can barely hold our grip on this figurative “rope”, or “string”, or “ribbon” – whatever it is we’re supposed to be connecting for closure. In short: we’ve been through a lot. But when you wake up from your seven-hour-just-finished-my-last-final-nap, don’t throw aside this semester as one of pure hardship and failure. Think about everything you did: every test, every paper, every project, every math problem, every all-nighter, every cup of coffee, every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears…

You worked so hard.

Give yourself some credit!

Far too often, we seek validation from other people; we yearn to hear a “great job” or “you’re awesome” from literally any breathing human being. But we should be looking within ourselves for that. You are your toughest critic, so being proud of yourself – genuinely, wholeheartedly proud of yourself – is one of the most empowering things we can feel at this time in our lives. It may seem like this semester was a bust, but when you put the little things together, it adds up to a whole lot.

Be proudof that group presentation that feels like it took years off your life. There are skills that come from working with other people, and valuable ones at that.

Be proud of every project that seemed irrelevant. Life has a funny way of making us do things we simply just don’t want to do, so think of this as a crash-course for the real world.

Be Proud of that 50-page research paper. Now you can appreciate the people that actually do this shit for a living because without research, where would our world be?

Be proudof passing the class that had absolutely nothing to do with your major. It shows you are capable of learning, even in adversity.

Be proud of the new friendships you’ve made, and the old ones you’ve kept. It can be hard to not shut everyone out when you feel like your life is the punch line of a bad sitcom joke. But sometimes these relationships are the only thing that will keep you going, even when you feel defeated. We all need someone to lean on from time to time.

So…your final grades aren’t as good as you wanted them to be. So what? I promise that the world will not stop turning because you got a C. Be proud of the work you did. Know you didn’t do your best? That’s ok. Someone somewhere didn’t try at all. Set goals to work harder next semester. Worked really hard and still didn’t get the results you wanted? You still rock. Thank yourself for persevering, even when it was tough. We are so lucky to go to college. We owe it to ourselves to remember that every single life-experience is a lesson, and this semester held more life lessons than anything a textbook could have taught us. So take a deep breath in…then let it out…and look at what you’ve accomplished.

You may be sad, you may be scathed, and you may be immensely sleep-deprived…but you did it. And that alone is something to be proud of.