Today was my graduation ceremony, which means I’m now officially a Bachelor of Arts and no longer a student. It was a strange feeling to look around and see coursemates, some of whom I’d met during Freshers’ Week, which seems both just a blink of an eye and a lifetime ago.

It was good seeing friends again after several weeks since the end of term. I enjoyed saying hello and wishing people all the best for the future and reminding people to keep in touch. I’m often not very good at maintaining friendships once I’m away from other people, but I hope that some of the friends I’ve made at university will be friends for life. There are few things better than the pleasure of the company of friends, and over the summer with fewer students about, I’ve appreciated all the more the people who have still been around and the time I’ve had with my friends.

Now, of course, comes the exciting task of taking our part in the adult world: finding something to do in life, building friendships and relationships, starting families, trying to make a difference to the world that we find ourselves in. I think that transition is a really exciting one, and it annoys me the negative connotations we attach to ideas like “growing up” and so on. One of the things I want to make sure that I do is avoid becoming caught up in the rat-race of the often shallow dreams of our culture, and be prepared to live differently, to seek to change the world and to be the change I want to see, with all the risk that is involved with that. I want to give up the small ambitions of mere personal peace and prosperity, and aim for the big ambitions of Goodness, Beauty and Truth in the way I live. I know I can only achieve that with the power and grace of God at work in me, and with the support of friends and community.