It’s that time of the year. The end of the year. Freshman—the real ones—finally understand “Caf” terminology and what really goes down in the YU library. Sophomores think they own the school because they are running for every club position, and winning them. Juniors are beginning to realize that they will soon become seniors. This either means pretending to know what they want to be, and getting internships in any corner of the world that will accept them, or spending the next few months creating the best possible medical scenarios to land the 35th street first floor apartments for next year.
This leaves us. The seniors. We’ve got a large, vacant space in our minds representing what will become of the next million years of our lives, since we believe we are invincible and should be running corporations by this point. We are at the point where we wonder: what the heck am I going to do with my life? Why do I suddenly have to start paying for everything? Should I make aliyah now or later? Why do I have to keep making new friends? I’d like to call this moment “internal senior mayhem.” This occurs on average twelve times a day.
I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you are the senior and you are sitting with a nice group of friends, and believe to be having a wonderful conversation. Then the dreaded-ax-in-heart-question arises: “what are you doing next year?” And you, calm as a cucumber, laugh and say, “Haha, I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out soon, no worries. How are you doing?” As the other person is responding to your polite question, you have already mentally checked out and the internal senior mayhem takes over; “I have absolutely NO idea what I’m doing with my life… is it too late to apply to graduate school? What exactly is graduate school? GRE vs. MCAT; which will be easier? Hmmm YU fellowship, that might give me some time and money to figure out what I want to do!…Why haven’t I done anything besides collect YU apparel over the last three years? Maybe I don’t actually want to be an occupational therapist…I have always loved animals…why not be a veterinarian? I am going to die alone broke with my 50 cats.”
About ten minutes have passed, and the other person is staring at you. You rack your brain for the last words that your friend just said and repeat them back, as if you obviously agree. You then realize you are late for your CDC appointment, which is a whole other set of life issues…but thank G-d for the free popcorn!
Every senior is just about to scream. Ask them one more time about what their plans are for next year, and you will soon enough hear a shriek: “DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT MY FUTURE PLANS! I DON’T HAVE ANY!” Your freshman, sophomore, or junior friends will try to console you, but all you want to say is, “you don’t understand, you’re just going on a CJF trip this summer and then life returns at Stern. I just learned how to separate my laundry, and now I need to run my own life!?”
Take note to all those who are not graduating this year: please stop asking us. We would really rather not opt for the super senior year and take all of your rooms in 35th street, spots in Professor Russell’s speech class, and RA positions for the third time.
We can’t have everything in our lives, but if you really want to know what every senior is thinking when you ask them about their future, just keep poking. One of us is bound to pop.