Senior stress is real…

I always wonder what people who go out every night and don’t have a care in the world major in. Like is your degree is in partying and cute outfits? Because I’m freaking jealous.

While everyone else seems to be living the dream senior year I’m panicking. But I know I can’t be the only one. Whether you have the ominous cloud of grad school looming over you, or worse yet, finding a REAL job, senior year can be a stressful time. Let’s start with grad school.

So many applications. So many. This is even worse than applying to undergrad because so much more is at stake. No one wants to waste a 4-year bachelor degree from not being able to get into graduate school. So the applications start, and they continue until you have a comprehensive list of 35 programs wondering how you’re going to pay for all the applications. Might I add, praying that at least ONE will accept your sorry excuse for a human. And as if undergrad didn’t rob you of enough money to begin with, now you have to pay to apply to programs with no guarantee of your entry and eventually spend more money to make more money???? Is anyone else not seeing the logic behind this? OK, good. So as if applications themselves weren’t stressful enough, you then have to pay again to take a test that pretty much determines your fate in many graduate programs…the GRE/MCAT/GMAT/LSAT.

Just when you thought that nothing could be worse than the SATs. HA wrong! Graduate school testing makes sure to ask you the square root of 54305908 using the quadratic formula all while understanding the root word of catastrophe, which is much what the test is. Also, why is the standardized testing related to things I learned as a FRESHMAN in high school? This information is at least 7 years old, and believe it or not I haven’t had to fill in the blanks for a vocabulary section many times in-between now and then. It’s like they want you to fail, right?

Wouldn’t it make sense for them to test you on things that are pertinent to your intended graduate field instead of being judged on ancient information? Or better yet, why don’t we get rid of the GRE and other graduate school testing all together and accept students based on GPA, and their well-rounded personalities. But I forgot, America likes to focus on superficial qualities such as generalized standard tests and aesthetics as compared to personalities and real intelligence determiners.

And while some are contemplating the meaning of life after taking these exams, others are contemplating the real meaning of life… a career. I can only imagine what job searching is like, and I thank god that graduate school and it's overwhelmed stress is delaying that process for another 2 years. I can see the fear in people’s eyes when they talk about graduating in the spring and finding a decent job in their intended field.

This whole growing up thing is a conspiracy. At this point I’m thinking I should fail my last 2 semesters and try out this whole carefree senior year that some people have going on. Again, I’m jealous. Teach me your ways. Until then… It’s time to contemplate the meaning of life some more, and narrow my grad school list down to 34 instead of 35. Someone accept me. Please.