Every time a new season begins, I always feel a little nostalgic. I take some time to reflect on where I was and what I was doing at the beginning of spring, summer, fall, and winter the year before.
The summer after I graduated high school and before entering college, I was reminded that this was it. This was the beginning of the end so to speak. Graduating from high school meant taking the first big step into adulthood. You're done with elementary knowledge and ready to move onto educating yourself in a specific trade.
Once Gen-ed courses were finished at the end of my Freshmen year, I struggled once again with taking the next big step. I know it doesn't seem daunting now, no matter what stage in life you're at, but picking a career path to focus on before you're twenty can be extremely intimidating. After all, most students are still trying to find out who they really are; I won't get all psychological on you, but the human brain hasn't fully developed until around the age of twenty-five.
So trying to tell students they have to decide what career field they are most interested in entering after college for a good forty years to base the rest of their college courses on at the age of nineteen or twenty is probably not the most efficient route to take.
Give yourself a year to relax and experiment on what you do or don't like about yourself, form a steady friend group, learn how to use the university resources and try to learn as much as you can about the looming "real world" while still in the confines of campus. Ok, that's enough time to learn everything about yourself. You're a seasoned professional now in the art of getting to know, well, you.
Get out there now and grab an internship. Oh and by the way, if you don't get an internship in your desired field, tough luck. Most jobs nowadays require at least two years of experience before they'll even consider you as a candidate. So after considering the previous sentence, finding an internship went from a nice but generally unnecessary accessory to probably one of the most important first investments you could give to your future working self.
As a soon-to-be Senior, I'm not ashamed to say I've had a couple of anxiety attacks as I glance at life after undergrad. Real life doesn't have semesters or summer breaks to measure time. The rubrics and daily class schedules forcing you out of bed disappear and all that's left are projects that have one deadline. There's no one checking up to see the progress of your current project. You are finally left to your own devices and that's flat-out scary right now when you've hit a lazy streak and have the privilege to take a personal day with little to no repercussions.
However, for the first time in my life despite the fear of not knowing what awaits me, I think I'm looking more with anticipation and excitement at what kind of prospects await me next Fall rather than nostalgically reflecting on where I was last Fall.
Knowing that graduation from childhood into adulthood is right around the corner kinda does that to a person.
