“This is the point where we stop saying you have time to grow up.” These were the words uttered at my high school freshmen orientation seven-and-a-half years ago. Now, they echo with the ipanic of my last college semester. After years as an undergraduate student, can I truly conquer the world as I once believed?
My whole life has been planned out until this point. As a daughter who dutifully attended her mother’s graduate school graduation at the tender age of one, college was an expectation rather than a choice. Four years ago when starting the Stern College application, little did I know how different I would become four years later. Seventeen-year-old me would be shocked to see the pretentious English major who she became. My limits have been broadened by college–I faced my worst fears, made my own decisions, and took my first wobbly adult steps with falsified grace. Now my life has come to the oft quoted two roads, each offering the futures that lie ahead.
Whether you are on campus the typical six to eight semesters, or my own five, there is one day you think will never come. The ‘you are really graduating’ midnight fervor wards off sleep as thoughts about a future I can’t control beckons. Yes, I hope that my college friendships will last a lifetime and that the fond memories will outlive days and weeks of stress. Yet, what can calm our fears that stem from the greatness expected of us? I speak of a fear shared by many as commencement hovers over the senior class.
Thankfully, we do have a bit more time to get our act together. The class status of college just places a rudimentary timetable on how fast we should be growing. Few seniors might have their precise plans signed on the dotted line, but all of our dreams, we trust, will carry us through, as they have done thus far.
At every age, we evolve and become as we travel through life. Here I am, but here I won’t stay. This chapter is near its ending. However, the sliver of time remaining leaves me hopeful.
This time can be put to use, not squandered away in an anxious bubble of fear of the unknown. A last chance to bond with peers before our parting ways separate us. Because we are attempting a last hail mary in not claiming our adulthood, before our parents decide we are truly grown up. Weeks remaining of our college life to relish and then coax us into the metaphorical high heels awaiting the next step in our lives.
Alas, the best wake up calls precede the end, before the scarce options leave you mournful of a brighter lost chance. One fear is that we have outgrown all coddling. That’s the scary part. Just like any goal, this future is up to us. The same anxiety can drive us forward instead of undoing twenty plus years of hard work. While some might vouch for our good names, only one person can push open the door and impress the world.
Through various degrees, we have earned our spots. These are the futures we’ve created. Today is the day and the possibilities are endless. We have to recognize the strengths in ourselves in order to banish the anxiety of our failings.
So, I won’t let this hysteria monopolize my last semester of college. We are young, talented, and foolish enough to dream.
It’s time to begin, isn’t it?