Class registration time is back! This time, though, it feels a little different. It’s not quite my last semester, but it’s my last Fall semester. I just signed up for my last Fall semester of college. What a strange feeling!

There was so much that went into this class registration. So much planning, so much advisor visiting, so much re-planning when the class is full before your window opens. I had to not only plan out Fall semester, but Spring semester as well. I had to check and double check and triple check that I was all good on all of my graduation/major requirements. I have only two more semesters to get everything out of the way.

So no, it’s not the end, but it’s starting to turn towards the end. That ‘senior year complex’ is coming on the horizon, I feel it on the edges of my heart. This is it. I’m officially signing up for the last lap of my student career.

And I do mean ‘career.’ Like most, I have been a student since I was three years old. Seventeen years of my life have been spent in a classroom, learning facts and concepts. Preparing myself for the future.

I know many things. I can read an essay and fix obscure grammar mistakes. I can look at a picture of the earth’s crust and tell you about its geological timeline. I’ve even gotten the hang of Microsoft Excel. But I do not feel prepared for the concept of no longer being a student. I do cannot tell you facts about being an adult.

Where do I go from here?

All I know is how to be a student. I’m comfortable with being a student. I have tips, tricks, shortcuts. I’ve become pretty good at it. I’ve finally gotten comfortable with how to be the best student I can be, only just in time to have my student career come to a close.

I feel a little nauseous.

Post-graduation is the unknown. Sure I’ve had a job here, a job there. I pay rent on time, I set my own alarm, make my own dinner. But I would still wake up every day and head to school, just like I’d been doing since I was three years old.

My life here in Tallahassee finally seems to feel somewhat stable, I have a routine, I have favorite restaurants, I have friends. The idea of uprooting myself again to move somewhere new, although exciting, hurts my heart. It scares me.

I don’t know what my life after college will look like. But I do know that I will be ok. I just have to remember my training. I will have to rely on myself and on all the things that I’ve learned over the years. I’ve been prepping for ‘the future’ my whole life. I have been getting ready for my whole life. I am prepared. I am ready. I can do this.

(And there’s always grad school.)