Dear Recent (or Soon-To-Be) College Graduates,
We did it!
Every one of you should be so proud of every research paper, moment, art piece and person you have become in the last four years (or however long it took you to get your degree). A bit cheesy I know, but it is all too often understated just how much we should take pride in ourselves and our achievements. As someone who has suffered from years of not feeling “good enough” or “smart enough” I know how hard it is to say that you’re proud of yourself.
The feeling starts to set in.
The slow feeling of pride. Not a selfish kind of pride, but a pride where you allow yourself to appreciate how much you have done, to realize what you managed to pull off in four years.
- You had your first official all-nighter happen during the first weekend of freshman year. Even though you told your mom that you were getting plenty of sleep (just so she wouldn’t worry about her “pumpkin”) and finally revealed the truth during your second semester. By the way, she always knew. She will always know.
- You spent too many lunch breaks studying for that exam, for that one professor who the upper-class students only warned you about after you registered for the class.
- You woke up for 8:30 a.m. classes at 8:15 a.m. and still somehow managed to get there on time, and with a hot coffee in your hand.
- You stained your skin a permanent shade of charcoal black or burned all your fingertips from a hot glue gun doing last minute additions to the project you said was “done” hours ago.
- You forgot to throw in your days old scrubs in the wash before throwing them on to face the day.
- You ran to the school library when they opened so you could print out your paper you spent all week working on. Only to find that you didn’t email the latest version to yourself and your flash drive is sitting on your desk.
Through all this, and hundreds of other scenarios, you survived. You managed to get yourself out of bed (on most mornings) and go to classes, sometimes through multiple alarms (including the time the fire alarm went off during Hurricane Sandy because some idiot “forgot” you needed water to cook rice).
Even when you hated the assigned reading so much you threatened to burn the book if you had to read one more page or the times you didn’t do the assigned reading until the walk across campus to said class. You drank so much coffee that you could have sworn Starbucks opened another store inside your veins.
The last time we were feeling this jittery-nervous-excited-fearful-fearless feeling was when we were getting ready to cross a different stage, from the high school stage where it was OK to be nervous, into the college stage. It was understandable since it was only our whole future, and potentially tens of thousands of dollars of debt afterward. Do you remember wanting to get out of high school so bad that you would do just about anything?
Well, now that we are going out into the real world, who, what and where will you turn to? Will you still do anything to avoid what lies ahead? A graduate degree program? A soul-sucking job just to pay the minimum payments for student loans? Or will you end up throwing yourself head first into your passion and hope that you don’t drown?
I can’t guarantee anything, but you will survive.
Four years ago when you first started moving your childhood bedroom into overstuffed suitcases and duct taped cardboard boxes labeled by your mother, you were probably determined to make everything fit. Torn baby blankets stuffed inside stained pillow cases reused as a trick or treat bag. As you were packing then, you realized that the next time you would be in this room you would be only a guest, never a resident. For some of us, our rooms turned into new office spaces or our younger brother’s “big boy” room. Neither happened to me personally, but I still managed to feel bare every time I slept there during winter breaks, or the brief week in spring when other college kids found a way through “poor college life” to take a vacation down to Miami.
After four years of repacking and reloading memories, it became easier to manage. Life after college is manageable. Yes, of course, it is extremely nerve-racking and daunting to see how much you have to pay back in ten or twenty-five soon-to-be exhausted years. But it is possible because you came into college knowing what you were fighting for. You fought for that piece of paper. Ridiculous as it may sound that paper is what it looks like to spend more than a few all-nighters hunched over illuminated computer screens, all day with stomach growls begging for non-dining hall meals, and mental breakdowns over papers and projects which just needed a bit more time to comb over and digest before sending in for a grade.
In the next few weeks, just-as-exhausted professors will give us congratulations between yawns and gulps of black coffee. You know the professors with whom you spent a handful of classes every semester or the ones that practically let you live in their office, so much so that the maintenance workers began to think you were some type of departmental intern (maybe some of you already were). Then, on the minutes after we cross the stage, we will be bombarded and over-congratulated by our teary-eyed mothers, overdramatic grandmothers, strong nodded fathers and clench-jawed grandfathers.
I know exactly how everyone must be feeling because I only have seventeen days until I graduate with my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. I know that finding a job will be difficult and you don’t want a dead-end or a lousy job just to pay the bills. I know you want to make your parents proud. You will. You already have by coming into your lives. They love you for every achievement, every stumble, every mistake: every moment makes them proud they raised such a well rounded and respectful person.
Believe it or not, our parents want us to come back home. They want us back so they can watch over our progress like they did when we were learning how to walk. They want to see the passion in your eyes. Show them a little bit of your life. They raised you so let them see what you’ve become. They want you to stumble so they can watch you get right back up again. They want you to figure out stuff by yourself.
As you walk across the stage and get handed the diploma you worked your mind, body and soul for, take a second, or even a full minute, to breathe. You deserve it. Tell yourself you can do anything that you put your mind to. If you want to start a restaurant that has hundreds of different vintage video games: Go for it. If you want to start an organization to help give clean water to Ethiopian children: Go for it. If you don’t want to handle the real world and live in your parent's' basement: Ask your parents before you start mooching, but go for it. If you don’t know if you want to live across the country for a really good paying job: Go for it. Anything you want to do, I want you to know everyone graduating in the next month is in the same boat as you. Just follow your passion wherever it takes you. You deserve to feel happy and fulfilled in this world: not miserable. You can do anything. You can go anywhere. Take that passion with you wherever you go, whoever you will meet, and show them who you are. Show them what makes you wake up every morning. Show them how you will change the world.
Asking for help should not be a huge ordeal. I understand that it is embarrassing, but you need to give yourself some credit (and definitely more than three per accomplishment) that you are only human. Humans make mistakes. Humans cry. Humans have regrets. You start to see how the world is not as scary when you have people on your side. Maybe if you saw everyone as someone who can better you, the world wouldn’t look so menacing. Maybe we just need to take pride in the fact that we didn’t end the world when we graduated in 2012. We took over in 2016!
Your Friend,
Katrina
