On May 17, 2013 senior psychology major Seanna Wright will trade in her cleats and jersey for a cap and gown.
The Poughkeepsie native is the flash of red hair that you see sprinting down Briarcliff field. Wright is the one who assisted on sophomore communications major Jillian Ferro’s first goal of the season against Mercy College. And Wright is one of four senior soccer players who will be leaving the pitch and walking towards the podium to receive her diploma.
While the forward is looking ahead towards graduating from Pace, her time on the pitch will be what she remembers most fondly.
“Graduating is going to be bittersweet,” Wright said. “Going from playing soccer every single day to it not being a part of my life anymore is going to be a difficult adjustment.”
While leaving the game she has played since she was seven years old will be tough, it is the friends she shared the pitch with that she will miss the most.
“I feel like everyone [on the team] is a family,” Wright said.
Her family away from Poughkeepsie made sure that they all shared a common keepsake. Wright and her senior teammates took a picture earlier in the year in the home town locker room. Their backs faced the camera and the seniors showed off the numbers they have worn on their backs over the past four years.
“We did that because we wanted to get a memory on camera,” Wright said. “We are never going to stand in that locker room again, we are never going to wear those jerseys again, and we wanted to have something to remember our four years by.”
Wright will have the rest of her memories to herself. Making the playoffs her junior year, scoring her first collegiate goal against Mercy College as a freshman, or any of her countless practices will fill the mental scrapbook that only she can see.
For Wright, her goals that lay on the other side of graduation include becoming a high school guidance counselor. The Poughkeepsie native plans on going to grad school for a master’s degree in school counseling. Yet crossing the stage for graduation this time around will be quite different for Wright than graduating high school.
“Walking in high school was not the same,” Wright said. “You left a place where you made friends, but you could still make new friends in college. Walking in May will be different because you’re going into a whole different world and realizing that it’s time to grow up.”
In four years Wright molded a new mindset about the real world. As a senior in her high school public speaking class, Wright gave a passionate speech to her class about not wanting to grow up. But thanks to a scrapbook full of soccer memories, friends, and family alike, Wright will be ready to walk with the rest of Pace’s seniors this coming May.