I remember being so nervous when I entered Storke Publication Building for the first time. I wasn't worried about the article I had written, but I certainly was worried that once my editor found out I was in law school, he would say "thanks but no thanks" to an old graduate student who had no intention of becoming a journalist.

Instead, my editor, Brendan Selby, spent over an hour teaching me the correct style and format for a news story. He also encouraged me to write another article for the following week. I did and continued to write for the Daily over the next three years.

During my first Daily banquet, Brendan jokingly said that I should have won the 'Dan Grunfeld Where the Hell Did You Come From?' award. Perhaps he wasn't the only one posing such a question.

Before coming to Stanford, I knew law school would be my last chance to explore my academic and extracurricular interests without the added stress of a full-time job and/or a family.

I wanted to interact with graduate students from across campus, so I became involved with the Graduate Student Council and Graduate Student Programming Board. I believed in the importance of mentorship, so I worked with Expanded Advising Programs. I had always wanted to be a reporter and to plan events for other students, so I wrote for The Daily and became a community associate. I felt it was important to fundraise for public interest law, so I coordinated Stanford Law School's annual Battle of the Brains. I had grown up loving the endearing puns on the Jungle Cruise tour ride at Disneyland, so I walked backwards telling my own comic stories as a campus tour guide.

I have loved my time on the Farm. As a graduate student, I have been incredibly blessed to experience Stanford as well as Stanford Law School. Countless students, faculty, administrators, and staff at the University have forever changed my life for the better. I leave Stanford with so many wonderful memories from dancing at the Grad and Law Formals with my incredible fiance to introducing tourists to Memorial Church to making gingerbread houses with Crothers Hall residents to serving tater tots at Midnight Breakfast to hiding candy-filled eggs at the Meyer-Buck House Easter Egg Roll to feasting on garlic fries at dozens of football and basketball games. I wouldn't have changed a minute of it.

To those of you graduating, congratulations! I am truly honored to be a part of the Class of 2007, and I look forward to getting to know more of you at our upcoming reunions. Carpe diem, learn to love what you chose, and go big or go home.

To those of you staying on the Farm, I envy you. Take advantage of as many opportunities as possible and then give more than expected back. Cause people to ask, "Where the hell did you come from?" Go Cardinal!

Jenny Allen is taking the California Bar Exam in July, getting married in August and starting work at the Orange County office of Latham & Watkins LLP in September. Contact her at jennetta@gmail.com.