To be quite blunt, I suck at saying goodbye. It's just something I always have, and probably always will, struggle with.

For some, saying goodbye can be a shortcoming -- an endeavor often missed or just glazed over.

Not for me.

When it comes to parting ways, I err in the direction of excess and even melodrama. I have spent many an hour planning a bittersweet speech or writing an extensive letter documenting every possible emotion coursing through my maudlin being. It's really sad, I know, but it's been a struggle.

So instead of using this space as a means to tell underclassmen to enjoy their years and not waste them on tawdry acts like drinking and laziness (which would make me quite the hypocrite), I have decided to address my own peers for a change. I think it would benefit us all to know of some better ways to say goodbye, shirking the myth Boyz II Men so desperately wants us to believe.

1. Get your friends together and partake in some interesting activity. Try to think of something unique and clever, such as taking a hike through the nearby mountains or staying up an entire night watching all the silly movies you have quoted over the years. Do something completely irresponsible and irrational. Those are always the experiences that leave a permanent thumbprint in the annuls of our memories.

2. Go out and perform every trite Penn State-related thing you told yourself you never would do. Take the picture at the Lion Shrine, eat that last dinner in the Findlay dining commons, get a scoop of your favorite flavor from the Creamery, or just enjoy the scenic walk down College Avenue.

It's the last time we can enjoy those things as students, so live up the cliché as long as you can. I, for one, will miss some of those luxuries when they pass.

3. Make a CD of all the songs that have carried you through college. As a former music writer, this one comes from the heart.

You all know there are songs that, once heard, will take you right back to a specific place and experience. How memories of a beer-flushed fraternity floor will become crystal-clear in your mind as Nelly rhymes the phrase "Must be the money!" or the drunken chorus of friends relived with the blaring guitars from "Livin' On a Prayer."

This is the soundtrack to one of the most captivating movies ever -- college life. Just make sure all the songs are obtained legally so as to avoid the wrath of the file-sharing police.

4. Get all your Penn State purchases out of the way. Yes, you could have years and years of alumni time to procure those items, but do you really want to be one of those Penn State grads with a Nittany Lion emblem on every blessed thing you own?

Purchase the essentials and those alone, keeping hold of them as trinkets of your college years. Better that than a growing collection of food, car supplies and dog leashes that forever mark you as "one of those alums."

5. Or if you're lucky enough, write a senior column thanking all the people that made your four years as a Penn State student the best time of your life.

Tell the people you have befriended -- like those from your dormitory, perhaps -- how they made what could have been the most deplorable living arrangements an enviable experience and how much you will miss every moment, no matter how lazy or silly they may have been.

Be sure to make mention to all your other friends, and how they turned a timid individual into someone who could confidently look himself in the mirror and smile, for the first time.

It would also be a way to forever document how much you enjoyed working with, let's say a newspaper staff, that made hours upon hours of seemingly overwhelming work a complete pleasure.

Finally, it would also function as a way to tell the masses that, no matter how smitten by emotion you may become when the diploma gets handed to you, all the years of laughter, tears, confusion, enlightenment and everything in between have been worth it. And you could rest confidently knowing you parted ways with the utmost eloquence and assurance.

So, I guess I still haven't learned my lesson. In the end, all I'm really trying to say is ... Goodbye, Penn State.