Unbelievable. They say high school goes by fast but when your graduation hits, you know you’re going on to something else. Whether that be a four year college, a technical college, military, or right into the workforce, you don’t feel that different than you did a few months ago. You laugh at the people who told you that it only gets tougher from here because you thought high school was pretty rough. You think, “I have all the time in the world to figure my life out, why are you pressuring me to do it now?” And even during your freshman year of college they’re asking you to plan your path which seems pointless because the end is so far away. But when you get going and you are cruising through college with no sense of time, time seems to stop and hit you in your senior year.
Registration for the first semester of senior year doesn’t really resonate with you at first but once you get to midterms and shortly after that begin planning your final schedule, you freeze. It’s time to register for your FINAL SEMESTER. You almost hear the metaphorical glass box of school you’ve been living in crash to the floor in an instant. You start thinking, “This can’t be right, I was just a freshman, how did it all go by so quickly?” You have no idea how you breezed through the last 3 and half years of your life. (I always say someone else lived them for me because I don’t think I was there for it.)
I just registered for my final semester of college. I am already done with all of my classes and I’m moving on to the final step. For me, that’s student teaching. Seniors have already started getting “countdown to commencement” style emails. My family is asking about the date for graduation and taking off of work for it. This is happening. I don’t know exactly how I’m feeling at this point. I’ve described my realization of finishing college as it as terrifying, unreal, insane, impossible, stressful, but also exciting. No, I have no idea what the future holds for me after college and that is absolutely terrifying. I am not going to grad school, I am not taking another semester, I am being tossed to the wolf pack that is the workforce with nearly no instructions on how to survive.
When you leave high school, it’s almost certain that you have your next step planned. But when you’re about to graduate college, you realize that your next step is ambiguous. You may not have that perfect job lined up, you may not know when you’re moving out of your parents’ house or how you’ll even get the money to do so, you have zero clue of how you’ll pay back your loan, but you’re hopeful. You’re hopeful because you have an entire world to explore. You’re options are endless. You could land your dream job, or shuffle around until you realize a different passion and then pursue that passion. You can do anything.
These are the thoughts that keep me going as I tackle the stress and uncertainty of my next steps in life. These are different for everyone and no one truly feels the same as anyone else. Just know, everyone has these types of feelings in some way or another, you are not alone.
