Melissa A. Wilcox, from Glastonbury, Connecticut – “One of the things that I love about Bates is that it has made me ready to leave. I feel prepared to leave. We had our senior seminar series and we had excellent speakers and we learned about the law, and how to be okay with our housing contracts and how to manage our finances. And we’ve taken classes and we’ve gained all this knowledge. So in some sense I do feel very ready to leave, and I’m so grateful to Bates for that. Meeting with the trustees and the alumni and everyone who has graduated from Bates and come back to Bates — it is really inspiring to see everyone do that, and to know that you will still have that connection with Bates afterwards.”