As the Spring 2012 semester comes to an end, the memories of the semester play out in my mind like a movie.

From the moment when I was first inspired to write a weekly column about the trails of the returning student to the many times throughout the semester when people came up to me, telling me how my column inspired them in some way, it all has a special place in my heart.

At the beginning of the semester when “Life of the Returning Student” started, my main goal was to be an outlet for the many students on campus that fall into that “returning student” category, but felt like they had no voice.

The interesting thing is that somewhere along the line, the column has taken on a life of its own.

During last weeks production of the Talon Marks paper, a misunderstanding caused the “returning student” column to not be printed in the paper.

It was pretty frustrating for me because I took a huge risk in that column and told the Talon Marks readers about a serious physical ailment that I have.

I talked about having Lupus, which is an auto-immune deficiency disease which drastically affects my day-to-day life.

My concern with the column not being ran was that people would not know such an important thing about me, and my motivation for confessing it in the first place was so that people would know that even with a physical disability, they can still succeed.

I knew that a few people read my column, but I had no idea if the column had truly impacted anyone until last weeks column failed to print in last weeks paper.

People stopped me and asked me about why it was not in the paper. People sincerely seemed to be interested. Even some of my colleagues on the paper commented on how they read the column and wondered why it was not in the paper.

The feeling was overwhelming. That was exactly why I started the column in the first place. Each and every column, I make it a point to say the words that I live my life by; “If you don’t do anything to impact change, you have no right to complain.”

It seemed to be that I was infact impacting change. People not only care about what I have to say, but are affected when I don’t say it.

An older returning student gave me the nicest compliment about my column when she said, ‘I like reading your column because you understand how hard it is to come back to school and fit in with an entire campus of classmates that are way younger than you, and with curriculum that at times seems to be geared to younger students.”

Other returning students share the frustration of technological advancement.

It’s not always easy to understand computers, tablets, and lesson plans that seem to be in full swing before I can write my name, but being able to be a voice for other students that may feel similar is a huge blessing.

Thank you for allowing me to be that voice. I am sincerely humbled. Regardless of our status on campus, disabled student, first time student, athlete, returning student, or something else, we are all Cerritos College Falcons. This is our campus, and we need to all show pride in it and in one another. Let’s all have Falcon pride.