My Thanksgiving break, while a slight reprieve from every college student's zealously scheduled life, was far from entirely relaxing. Aside from the drive and the immediate catching up with family and the sudden appearance of food on the table that I didn't prepare myself, it was also punctuated with studying, reading, cramming vocabulary words in to my head for the upcoming GRE, and explaining my tentative future plans to my parents. The times I wasn't sitting in the living room on my laptop on various vocabulary review websites were spent in my bedroom focusing on the homework I still need to do as a senior in college with one foot out the door, and the other planted firmly on Concordia's campus.
My story as a senior in college is not supremely unique to every other student in their final year of undergraduate education, nor will I attempt to make it sound like it is. Every student in these final hours of fall semester is making a choice, or, contemplating several choices. All of these choices are legitimate, personal, meaningful, and must be the absolute best choice for yourself. These choices do NOT have to be set in stone. They can be as fluid, flexible, and as changing as the Minnesota weather (maybe flexible is an incorrect comparison to Minnesota weather, but, the point can understood). They are YOUR choices for YOUR life, and that is what is important.
The choices for the next nth years of my life have flip-flopped, it seems, every other month; one month, my heart is set on taking a gap-year, moving home, and working at a nonprofit for a year while saving up to attend graduate school. Another plan places me in Washington D.C. at my dream graduate school studying forensic psychology and eventually making my way in to criminal court. Yet another, albeit more whimsical plan, has me traveling the United States, staying in hostels, eating really great food while taking mediocre photographs. Another sets me down in Botswana working with the Peace Corp for two years. While it's easy to discern which choices might be the most realistic or wise, all of these choices are technically possible.
What I realized as I went through this mental process-of-elimination, was that recurring theme of privilege; how I had the opportunity to choose what I truly wanted to do, and set aside those resources in an attempt to make it happen. And, even if these attempts weren't successful the first time, I could try again at a later time. This isn't necessarily the case for every college senior in the country; or even the world.
There are individuals who may not have a choice in what they do after college; whether it is done out of necessity or for other reasons, there may be only one path forward for them after the graduation cap is thrown in to the air. Despite dreams of taking a gap-year or pursuing passion projects, finances, familial pressure, or extenuating circumstances could potentially put a roadblock on these other paths where others have a clear road. As I continue to contemplate these choices I have in front of me, I learn to recognize the privilege I have in having more than one choice, and in the possibility of having these opportunities partially presented before me.
This won't be a piece about pushing for people to forge their trail away from the path that seems to be the only one for them; that implies that I understand their situation and can offer legitimate and accessible options for them, that their narrative is something I can understand and completely relate to. This most likely won't and wouldn't be the case. To assume that I have an understanding of each person's situation based on a fraction of their story is wrong. What I can hope for for each individual is that they are happy, satisfied, and find ways to apply their passion to something meaningful. Their path, story, and where it leads is ultimately up to them; individuality and the choices that come from that individuality is a lovely thing.
