Time and time again, I’ve heard people tell me that my last semester of college would be the hardest. Now that I’m here, I realize that they weren’t referring to academics- it’s everything else that makes this last semester so different. When you start your last semester, you expect it to be like every other one. As the days start going by, you turn to yet another new week in your planner, and you start to wonder how on Earth you’re going to get everything done this semester, that’s when it slowly hits you. You soon realize that this semester is one packed with emotions, as it should be.

First, you feel the senioritis kick in and it becomes a bit harder to find motivation to go to class or to do your homework. You just want to be done with constantly reading, doing homework, or writing yet another essay. Every task seems like a huge mountain that you have to climb. At this point, you’re tired of climbing mountains- your brain is fried, but somehow, you keep trudging through the mud- only three months left, right?

As the days count down, you start to get excited about being able to go back home in three months and to be with your family again. You moved to a different city, or perhaps a new state, for college and while the journey has been worth it, it’s sometimes hard having two homes and not being able to be in both places at the same time. Soon enough, you’ll go back to cuddling on the couch with your mom and watching Lifetime movies, cooking meals with your dad, and helping your sister with homework while you share conversations about the silliness of your home, family, and life. Now, it seems like this time can’t come fast enough, but I assure you it’ll be here before you can blink.

There’s also the fear of whatever may come next, whether it’s graduate school, work, traveling, or something else. For so long, we’ve been doing what people say we should do or what people have told us to do- now, we’re reaching a point where we won’t have anyone guiding our life. We’ll be on our own and the fact that this is our time to do what we want is both exciting and horrifying at the same time. We have the freedom to pursue whatever our heart may desire, but we also have the responsibility of ensuring that we don’t mess up too much.

Stemming off of this, you have the stress of figuring out what your next journey will be. Whether you’re scrambling to fill out graduate school applications, brushing up on your interview skills, planning a journey around the world, thinking of majoring in something else, or something else entirely, I’m sure that whatever you’re planning for has some stress tied to it. Even if you don’t know where you’re going next, this is stressful too and you can never seem to stop thinking about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life and worrying that you’re going to be wasting time and freaking out because you don’t have every step of life planned out. It took me a long time to learn this, twenty one years to be exact, but sometimes not having a plan can be a good thing- sometimes, it’s okay to just know the first step you want to take and to trust your heart from there.

After a couple weeks, you start to realize that maybe academics aren’t the only reason you’re here. There are also the football games that you missed out on every other semester, doing stuff with friends on the weekends, and just simply talking to classmates, both new and old. Though you’ve been in class with these people for multiple years, it isn’t until you realize how close you are to the end that you decide to put the book down for a minute and instead share a conversation about life.

Finally, if you’re lucky enough, you have a strong, deep wish that this last semester will somehow never end, or at least will take its time doing so. When you look around at the friends you’ve made in such a short amount of time, the campus you’ve learned to call home, and the professors who’ve guided you to discovering your true potential, have taught you more than you could’ve ever imagined, and who’ve led you to find what you’re passionate about, you start to realize how lucky you are to have attended this institution and how much you don’t want it to end. Despite the stress, fear, and doubt that you may be feeling now, you slowly learn that you’re going to miss this place and walking off of campus for the last time will be one of the hardest things you do.

To everyone graduating this semester, I urge you to please make the most of the little time you have left. Our time is running short and it seems that the hourglass is only flowing faster. Keep your head in the game for three more months, make memories that’ll last for years to follow, appreciate your friends and professors who’ve made these years as beneficial, worthwhile, and rewarding as they were, and perhaps above all, take glory in knowing and trusting that you were successful in choosing the right university to call home. We’re almost there, soon-to-be graduates!