Junior year is so bizarre. It’s the in-between year by all standards. You have already made it through your first two years of your college education by this point, yet you are so far from completing it. The real world seems so far away, yet junior year is the year everyone begins to get their sh*t together and actually begin acting like adults. Unless you are aboard this new grown-up train, however, the movements people begin making around you towards adulthood can be shocking, frightening, uncomfortable, and again, bizarre.
People often say that junior year of college is the most academically demanding year you will undergo during your time of undergraduate education. Juniors always seemed to be the most stressed out when observing from a first-year’s perspective, and now being in the shoes of those people I looked up to two years ago, I can finally appreciate just how overwhelming it all can be.
More so than ever, what you do in college matters. It’s just like junior year of high school, where your grades can make or break you. At this point in the game, your grades matter, because should you screw up your GPA, there really isn’t much time left to fix it. Furthermore, it’s too late at this point to justify a career change. What I mean by this is that you no longer have the time to be like, “Oh, I am really not loving these classes I am taking for my major, let me just change it and try something new” – because now changing your major means having to stay a fifth-year, if not longer. You feel kind of like you are stuck on this journey you have chosen for yourself, speeding towards a head-on collision with your future and not really sure if you chose the right ride to get on. It’s disheartening to know that this late in the game, it's too little too late to make any life-altering decisions for your future, and that you are forced to just sit back and hope for the best. The path has been paved for you, by you, and while you may be stuck on one road, you can always still shape your destination – so try not to freak out too much.
God forbid you don’t know what you want to do by this point. Everyone seems to have it all together – internships, extra-curriculars, interviews, recommendation letters, solid LinkedIn profiles – the works. If you are like me and are lacking direction, watching everyone around you slowly figure stuff out can be the worst part of reaching such a pivotal point in your educational career.
On a more positive note, however, junior year isn’t always completely terrifying and stressful. Your junior year can feel fast-paced, magical, and everyday is a reminder that adulthood – a stage that many could never have imagined they would reach – is just a stone's throw away. It’s weird to think how fast we are all growing up, how quickly the trajectory of our lives is rocketing us towards responsibility, realness, and out of the college bubble. It’s an exciting time to be alive. Terrifying, yes, but only in the best, most unimaginable sense of the word.
