I’ve never really understood our University’s admissions slogan. I came to visit campus for the first time as a senior in high school and, emblazoned on the visitor’s packet were those three magical words: “Something Happens Here.”

Which I thought was silly. After all, something happens everywhere. And it’s not as if GW made any promises about what that something would be – the slogan is not “Something Special Happens Here,” or even “Something You Might Not Expect Happens Here.”

No, it’s just that ever-so-bland three-word combination.

I came to GW, and, as promised, something happened to me. Lots of things, actually. Student government, internships and a bunch of opportunities to write about campus issues. I did a lot of the stuff that they talked about people doing in that visitor’s packet.

I made friends doing it. I never tried to make any enemies, but that happened too. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it alone, and if I had the space in this column to thank each and every one of the people who were ever my friends, or voted for me in the SA election or whoever read one of my goofy columns in this paper, I would.

I must be particularly thankful to The Hatchet for the opportunity to write for the paper. Justin Guiffré contacted me shortly after the nadir of my GW life, when, to nobody’s surprise but my own, I was defeated in an election by a guy smarter, friendlier and better-liked than me. Despite my reservations in writing for the campus mainstream media, as well as my firm stance on the oxford comma, The Hatchet still decided to let me write for them.

Being an opinions writer was a natural fit. I already had the opinions, and having the opportunity to have them put on paper and distributed around campus made me feel ever so special. It showed me just how responsive the GW administration could be if you criticized them in a public forum; I was asked to come into multiple offices and discuss my columns with the people who had the power to make changes. Of course, none of the changes I suggested were ever made, but hey, I got to speak truth to power, man.

There’s nothing worse than some guy who has no idea what he’s talking about trying to bestow advice upon other people. I can’t pretend I’ve had any deep revelations about college life or any particular insight about how you should conduct yourself at GW. If I knew any of that, I would have probably had a much better time here.

So I won’t offer you any advice. I won’t tell you how you can make the most of your GW experience, because I’m relatively certain that I didn’t make the most of mine. I won’t tell you how you can change GW for the better, because I don’t think I changed GW, and if I did, I’m not sure it was for the better.

The beauty of that admissions slogan is that there’s absolutely no way it can’t be true. No matter how long you’re here, no matter what activities you get involved in, I guarantee something will happen to you. At this point, I could offer hackneyed observations about how what happens here is really up to you, or about how we all must shape our own GW experiences.

But Socrates said it best: “I know that I know nothing.” In many ways, I understand GW a lot less than I did when I was a high school senior standing in the admissions center. It’s very easy to over think GW – I did for four years. I’m not sure what I’ll think about my University in a few years. But I know what I’ll say when someone asks me about my college experience. “Something,” I’ll say, “happened there.”

The blank stares I’ll get will be their own reward.

Logan Dobson, a senior majoring in political science, is a Hatchet columnist.