As a college student, winter break is such a rewarding time. You can go home for a few weeks and catch up on some much-needed sleep. You get to spend time with family and friends and just relax. By the end of break, you may feel very ready to come back to college after your mom has continuously nagged you to stop watching Netflix. Coming back to college for most people is a time to catch up with friends and see how they spent their breaks.
But for a group of people, it is more than that. It is the last semester of your college career and it brings up very bitter-sweet emotions. It brings about a lot of "lasts" and it can be really hard. Some people are more ready to let go than others. One thing is for sure that being a second semester senior is a different experience for everyone.
There is a lot of stress on individuals about to graduate. First, there is post-grad. Will I get a job? Will I go to grad school? Will I take a year off and travel? These are all questions we must ask ourselves and make a decision on. Then there is the stress of finishing up undergrad. You have to make sure you have the right amount of credits to graduate and have taken all the classes to fulfill your major requirements. It sounds like an easy task but it is very challenging. Enrolling for classes is constantly a struggle and by senior year you might be behind because of it. A lot of people hope for an easy last semester in college but sadly that is not the fate of many of us.
Then there is the emotional and social stress that comes with second-semester senior year. I have already penciled in multiple breakdowns in my planner in the upcoming months. It's hard ending a chapter of your life that you've spent four years doing. You've made so many memories and relationships that it's hard to let that go. You want to spend your last semester living it up and hanging out with the people you've spent all of college with, but there are also responsibilities to worry about. It's all a balancing act and you have to find what works best for you.
I've spent a lot of time over winter break reflecting and thinking about my time in college. It has had its ups and its downs, but I will still be sad to leave on graduation day. It is comforting to know that the relationships made in college don't have to end when you receive your diploma. Some of those relationships will last years afterward and you will always reminisce about your college days.