I clicked through Instagram stories to land on Northeastern's graduation content. About seven mentions of '2025' in, it dawned on me.

I nonchalantly applied to Northeastern University. By the time I was crawling toward graduation in 2015, I looked around at the freshman and knew without a shadow of a doubt that if I had applied at the same time as them, I would have never received an acceptance letter. Here's what reinvention looks like up close.