Every now again, we are tasked with making significant decisions that have the potential to alter the course of our lives. It was not too long ago that I made such a decision. That decision was to enroll as a graduate student in Binghamton University’s Public Administration Program. I have a history with Binghamton, both the city and the university. I first arrived at the university in the fall of 2012 as a transfer student. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in the spring of 2015. Following graduation, I remained in Binghamton while working at as a mid-level administrator for OCC Transport, the transportation organization run by the Student Association tasked with providing mass transit to students and faculty. I did not like my job. Eventually, I quit and went back to just driving.

Within a few months, I felt discouraged by the direction my life was going in. In March, I quit my job and headed out for a haphazard adventure that crossed three states and ended right back where it had begun. I enjoyed my four month vacation, but I knew that I needed to make more progress in terms of career goals and professional development. That is where my decision to enroll in graduate school emerged from. I had a choice between the Rockefeller School at the University of Albany or Binghamton University to earn my Master of Public Administration. I ultimately chose Binghamton because I was familiar with the area, I still had some remaining friends and contacts, and I had a decent-paying job lined up. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

The fall semester was an epic struggle. My studies failed to ignite the same passion that political science did for me during my undergraduate years. I regularly questioned the point of all of the work I was doing and what exactly the outcome of all of that was going to be. What weighed most heavily in terms of my academic concerns was the amount of debt that I was going to have to accrue in order to bankroll this degree. Ultimately I decided that $22,000 was not a price I was willing to pay. On the positive side, I earned respectable grades in all of my classes and am expecting a final GPA somewhere between 3.5 and 4.0! Life goes on.

The only other consistent presence in my life was my job. I will admit, there is something inherently fun about driving buses. Maybe it is the excitement of driving a forty-foot long vehicle through streets that were clearly not designed for such a capacity. Maybe it is just the attractiveness of being able to focus on just driving instead of whatever was bothering me that day. I'm mostly convinced it was because of my coworkers, a great group of people who I will miss. However, driving a bus full-time in order to balance bills and pay my way through graduate school was not exactly what I was looking to get out life. This was especially the case since I was not confident in my decision to pursue even higher education in the first place.

In between school and work, there were long, empty stretches. My apartment, which I had hastily leased at the end of August, was rarely ever suitable for living. It never felt like a home or even a dwelling for me, but rather a place where I went to avoid sleeping out on the streets. What few friends remained from my undergraduate years were busy and rarely committed to plans. Going out and meeting new people was especially difficult given Binghamton’s nightlife scene that places a heavy emphasis on underage drinking and hook-up culture. There was a time when I enjoyed that very much. Sadly, that time has passed. I made some new friends and had some interesting times. Not everything was bad this semester.

However, the weather eventually turned gray and the optimism had been present of summer dissipated into a gray and black sludge that coated the streets. My routine of waking up, working between six and eight hours per day, cramming in classes, doing school work, and then going "home" to attempt to sleep in a noisy building with a dog in the apartment downstairs that never stopped barking got really old, really fast.

At first, I felt excited about the next chapter of my life and all of the possibilities, both real and imagined. After excitement, came anxiety over all of the inadequacies in my daily life. Soon, those anxieties developed into bouts of depression and self-pity. Finally, I just felt nothing but a sense of emptiness and a lack of purpose. I wallowed in this for a couple of months and then I just got over it. Admittedly, this was entirely my fault. Nobody faulted me more than myself. I could have tried harder or I could have a better attitude, but I did not. Sometimes you just need to grow up. I hope that I have after this.

I am making this decision for me. I feel inadequate and I am owning that. The fact that I am still willing to take such a risk by abandoning graduate school still gives me hope that my best years have yet to come. I am a firm believer in taking risks.

I openly encourage anybody who is reading this to consider whether or not you are satisfied with where you are. If you are not, then consider making a change. Pursue your passions and your dreams, even if you have not the slightest idea of what they are. If you know what you are doing right now is not right for you, that is important. I always say that it is more important for people to understand what they do not want, as opposed to fully realizing what they want. I still do not know what I want. Despite this, I am confident that someday I will find it.

So off again I go. Farewell to Binghamton and school and work and people. For those of you who have had a meaningful, significant impact on my time here, I thank you for that. You know who you are. I thank my co workers for all of the valuable relationships and experiences. I thank Binghamton University for all of the good memories, the friendships that helped me navigate my way here, and the bachelor’s degree. It has been real, but now it is time for me to leave for good. Farewell!