Two months ago, I graduated from college and began my journey out into the adult world. I consider myself the luckiest guy in the world for getting four whole years at my dream school: The University of Texas at Austin. It was everything I had hoped it would be and much, much more. Not only did I have the time of my life in a city and state that offers so much in the way of fun times and unforgettable experiences, I learned more than I ever thought I could both in and out of the classroom. My time at UT helped me grow up and prepared me for my career and the rest of my life, and while I was excited for my next step, I felt unsettled as soon as the commencement fireworks ended and I saw my classmates over the past four years saying goodbye and going off in their separate ways.
After all, I’d grown up hearing the age old saying that college was supposed to be the best four years of your life. And for me, that had been the case so far. Coming to UT from New Jersey was a big adventure for me, and how could that ever be matched? How could taking classes that inspired me what to pursue in my career be trumped by the tasks associated with a 40-hour work week? How could lounging around at my pool between afternoon classes on a Tuesday be beaten by sitting in traffic during twice-daily commutes? How could coming home for much-needed winter and summer breaks lose out to working 50 out of 52 weeks in a year? Being a grownup has its perks too, but being an oversized man-child at college seemed better and better by the second in comparison, and for a while, I was truly sad and would have traded just about anything for 12 more credit hours at UT.
But after moving to Dallas and spending just a few weeks here, I started to see just how great the perks of being a grownup are. Even though I have to wake up a lot (A LOT) earlier than I did when in college, the work I do ends earlier and once I leave the office, I get to focus on anything I want and not worry about the inevitable deadlines associated with interviewing for internships and jobs, homework, projects, and the dreaded midterm and final seasons. In true nerd fashion, I truly enjoyed the classroom element of college, and I thought I wouldn’t get the same opportunities to learn in the working world. Boy was I wrong. In the amazing job I find myself in now, every day means learning about things that make what I learned in school so much more rewarding. And with all the training sessions and lessons to learn, my days go by faster at work than they ever did at school, a miracle I never could have seen coming. Plus, getting paid to learn doesn’t sit so badly with me either.
One of the best parts of being a grownup is just that. You’ve grown up. Well, sort of. I have a lot more responsibilities in the world but far more freedom. If I want to pack my bags and travel the world, I can burn up some vacation days and do just that without worrying about the effect it would have on my class schedule and workload. While my time at UT was great, I spent so much of that time thinking about what was going to be my next step. What classes to take next semester, what organizations to join, what career to pursue, what city to live in after graduation. Without so many of these questions bouncing around my head, I’ve found that it’s been so much easier to enjoy what life has to offer and I’m happier than ever.
Maybe my personality suits me better in adulthood than it did when I was growing up, but after just a few short weeks, I’m not as worried about what I’ll be missing out on by not having a valid student ID or being on a college campus anymore. It was my dream to be a Texas Longhorn, and I never really considered what would happen once I finished living that dream. My time at UT was incredible and I’ll look back on my time as a student fondly, but now it’s a great feeling waking up every day and waiting until I find my next dream.
And if that’s what growing up and being an adult is all about, then I’m pretty damn happy that I finally got around to joining the club.
