If you’re a senior, chances are you’ve heard the following question: “What are your plans for after graduation.” Unless you’re very good at planning, you also probably don’t have an answer to that question.
Or maybe it’s just me.
Either way, whenever I hear that question, I suddenly find myself breaking out into a cold sweat. It’s not because I don’t feel ready to say goodbye to Hood – despite my love for my college, I can feel myself reaching my end.
I’m ready for no more class and no more campus life. Ready to be an adult in the real world, doing whatever it is that real adult people do. It’s just figuring out how to make it to that point that I’m worried about.
The problem is not having a plan, not knowing how long it will take for me to get a job, and not having an idea of what I am going to do with my life. While I have a vague concept of what I want to do – pretty simple, just writing – I’m still pretty fuzzy on the particulars.
In my defense, I don’t think I’m alone. “I don’t like to talk about it,” said Gabrielle Cavalier, a senior at Hood. “It gives me great anxiety.”
Knowing that in a month I’ll be an alum is a pretty hard pill to swallow. Even if you do know what your post-college life will look like, as lots of people who are better than myself at planning probably do, I imagine that it’s still at least a little terrifying.
Of course, there are parts of the upcoming graduation festivities that I’m happy about. I’m excited to take my last final, and to attend Pub Crawl and senior week. I am excited to know that I am done with classes, at least until grad school, and to prepare my cap and spend some time with friends. I’m ready for all the fun time.
But that’s where my excitement ends.
I know that, eventually, I will figure out what I am going to do with my life. I will have a job and a place to live, and I’ll be set. But being thrown out into the world, not having another semester to go back to in the fall, is pretty scary. It’s kind of terrifying not knowing where exactly you’re going to be in a couple months, or a year. And the closer we get to graduation, the closer I get to the unknown.
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