“Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. You must never miss the opportunity to tell these people how much they mean to you.” – From the last episode of “Cheers”

So here we are. This is my last column ever for the Iowa State Daily.

I’m sure most of you are not upset at all. In fact, most of you are probably rather happy they don’t have to read my random thoughts about sex, drinking and blondes anymore in the Daily.

But before I go, I want to share my last bit of wisdom with the entire campus. I know it’s so clich‚. But since when have I been known to be original?

This is what I like to call “Michelle’s 5 Lessons for Life in College.” (I think “Advice for College Students” was already taken by a different Daily columnist.)

5. Everyone has to take one crazy, drunken Spring Break vacation.

I would recommend Cancun, Mexico. I went with seven of my closest friends during my junior year. It was a wild time of days filled with lounging on the white sandy beaches followed by nights of dancing, kissing and Mexico’s cheapest liquor.

It’s one of those things you have to do while you’re in college, before you are 21 years old, so you can truly appreciate drinking on foreign soil.

So start looking for a warm area for your next Spring Break.

Think you can’t afford it?

Trust me, you can. Just eat Ramen noodles for months like I did. You’ll save money on food and look great in your bathing suit from lack of true nutritional value.

You won’t regret it.

4. Criticism makes you stronger.

I’ve received countless e-mails and phone calls from readers saying the Daily is too liberal, my column sucks or the Daily just sucks in general throughout the year.

I’m a “evil person” and “feminazi liberal.”

But the best was when I was summer editor in chief.

One journalism student said she would “rather have a root canal without Novocain than ever work at the Daily again.”

I’ve never had a root canal, but that sounded a little harsh.

But for all of this criticism, I wanted to say thank you to the Daily’s readers.

Every phone call, correction and mean e-mail has made me a stronger journalist. It has kept me on my toes and made me work hard for improvement.

So in your college career, search out criticism. Everyone can handle praise. It’s a lot harder to swallow criticism, but it helps you more in the end.

3. Naps are essential to survival in college.

On college campuses, you see students napping in the library, on the lawn or in the Union, and it’s completely normal.

It’s acceptable. Everyone understands naps are needed.

I’ll miss my afternoon naps in the snooze-inducing comfortable chairs at Parks Library.

2. The dorm rats you meet during freshman year are friends for life.

I have a small group of people I met out at Towers in the first month of school. These are my friends for life.

I know a lot of people put a lot of confidence in the greek community for meeting friends. But the nerds I met out at Wallace, Wilson, Storms and Knapp are the world’s greatest drinking buddies.

The friendships started out simple, like how I met my friend, Dani.

It was the first weekend of college, before classes started in the fall of 1998. I was at an alcohol-free event that the university works so hard to have freshmen at, Casino Night I believe, when I realized this isn’t what college is about.

So I turned to this Omaha blonde who lived across the hall from me and asked “So do you want to go find some beer or what?”

Our friendship blossomed from there.

1. Live your life with no regrets

Through the last four years at Iowa State I have cried, been pissed off, dumped and flunked tests.

But it’s been the best four years of my life.

Sure there are things I wish I would have done. I wish I would have study abroad. I wish I would have taken the sex class on campus. And I wish I would had a fake ID, just to say I had one.

But as I look back at the last four years, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Farewell my fellow Cyclones.

I’ll miss ya.

Michelle Kann is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Garnavillo. She is the newsroom managing editor of the Daily. She hopes her tailgating gang won’t have too much fun without her next football season.