Editor’s note:

The following is part five in a five-part series about student-athletes’ lives after their careers as Cyclones.

Part one looked at how life changes after their final season.

Part two highlighted the balance struck between athletic and academic work, preparing them for the rest of their lives.

Part three profiled athletes with hopes of professional or Olympic careers.

Part four examined the differences for those headed into the workplace, and takes a look at former athletes who have already made the jump.

Finally, part five reveals our student-athletes’ feelings about their lives after Iowa State.

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Their journeys are coming to an end.

After four years of working, studying and playing, nearly 80 of Iowa State’s student-athletes have reached the end of their time in Ames.

“This has been my home for the last four years,” said senior Fred Garrin.

“I think it will be a sad day, but I’m just really ready to branch out now and I feel like I’m prepared to do that.”

Garrin was often overlooked during his time in uniform for the ISU football team.

He’s going after an NFL career, but something will come along with the culmination of his time at Iowa State that would mean even more to him than that.

“I’m so close to graduation,” he said.

“I just think it’s going to be a huge accomplishment because I’ll be the first person to graduate in my family. And just to know I’ll have a college degree, that’s more meaningful than any football team or anything.

“I’m really proud of myself that I’ve come this far and that I’ve done it.”

He can’t remember his first day in Ames, but he could recall what he felt sitting in his first class — Theater 106.

As far as the rest of the days he spent here, he said he couldn’t pick out many memories that didn’t occur on a football field.

After awhile, though, he said that meeting his fiancee, Ashley Ratute, sticks out.

His time here hasn’t always been easy, but he knows the challenges have been worth the rewards that have come.

“I feel like school more so has been a learning process and a figuring-out process of myself, and football has been the teaching,” Garrin said.

“It’s kind of molded me and taught me hardships and difficulties and how to bounce back from things that can take the wind out of you.

“Life will throw curveballs at you and how do you respond to it? Can you keep fighting, can keep your head up, can you still stay in the game? I feel like Iowa State has equipped me with those skills to be an adult and handle those [situations].”

Iowa State has been a part of some longer than others.

Lauren Fader and Elise Reid have been committed to the ISU soccer team since they were juniors in high school.

By the time they walk across the stage in May 2011, they’ll have been a part of this place for seven years.

“It’s strange hearing that. Seven years seems so long,” Fader said.

It’s been so long that Reid said when she looks back on her time, all she can see is “a blur.”

She said when she arrived here she was “a baby,” and her coach thinks she’ll be much thicker skinned when she leaves.

Through playing soccer for four years, Reid said she’s learned a lot.

But she isn’t sure if she’s ready to leave.

“I think it will be bittersweet because I’m leaving all of these great people, and that’s going to be terrible,” she said. “But it’s going to be time to move on.”

Unlike Reid, Fader remembers her first visit to campus, now six years ago.

She said Iowa State was never on her radar, but the coaches, players and campus won her over, and brought her to her home for the last four years.

But, like her friend and former roommate, Fader can see what lies ahead of her and is thinking about what it will be like to leave.

“It’s going to be strange and exciting at the same time because I think I’ll be ready to move on to the next stage of my life,” Fader said.

“I think it will be kind of a surreal feeling because you get into such a routine of going into class every day. Thinking ‘This is it, I don’t have class tomorrow or here ever again’ will be strange.”

Kaylee Manns is still a kid at heart.

The face of the ISU volleyball program for the last four years said she has enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of college life, and thinks it will be “really weird” going out in the real world and doing what she called “work work.”

Before she has to do that, though, she’s got to go through graduation.

“It’ll be nice, and it will be awesome to say that I’ve graduated college,” Manns said.

“All of my friends that have graduated have said ‘Don’t ever graduate,’ so it kind of scares me. But I’m excited to see what the future brings.”

Manns said she loves to travel, so she’ll try to play professionally in Europe.

She hasn’t left yet — or even figured out what to do if this volleyball thing doesn’t work out — but she’s already looking forward to coming back.

She’s proud of her accomplishments at Iowa State, and there’s no reason she shouldn’t be.

If there’s one thing that’s going to stick out about leaving, though, it will be the distance.

“The hardest part will just be leaving my friends and everybody I’ve met here,” she said.

“Everybody that’s been such a big part of your life for four years, everybody’s going different places. It’s just really weird to think I’ll have to take a plane flight to visit my [close friends] instead of just a couple of steps down the stairs.”

Lisa Koll isn’t even done at Iowa State, but she’s thankful for her time here.

She’s been named an All-American, won national championships and broken all sorts of records, but the individual things aren’t what stick out in her mind.

“I’m never again going to have the opportunity that I’ve had these five years,” she said.

“I’m never going to be a part of a collegiate team again and I’m never going to have that close-knit group of support and friends or meet new people every year.”

Right now, she’s working her way through her final season on the track and her second year in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Last season she battled a back injury that kept her from realizing many of the goals she had set out for herself, but she’s climbed back to the top of the track and field world simply through hard work and perseverance.

“One thing I take away from the last five years is there are a lot of ups and a lot of downs in life,” Koll said.

“In order to appreciate the ups, you have to appreciate the downs. Even in worse times, even when you think it’s never going to come back and you’re never going to be in a place where you were before or you want to be, you’ve just got to persevere.”

She said it seems surreal to think about her collegiate career coming to an end.

It’s odd, really, that she’s even thought about it. She’s still got races to win.

“It doesn’t really seem like it’s actually happening or that it’s actually been five years of my life that’s gone so fast,” she said.

“It’s sad to know that it’s going to be over, but it’s also been a great five years of my life and I wouldn’t take it back for anything.”