If you are like me, you are soon to be declared as an upcoming senior for the year of 2017. Thinking about this makes me slightly nauseous, and incredibly terrified. We are spent the last 16 years of out lives attending school every fall, winter, and spring seasons. Five days a week, seven hours a day (college being the exception), has been our routine since we were 5 and 6 years old. What happens after that?
The summer has always been a time without schoolwork, worry, or care. We were free to do what we wanted, when we wanted and with who we wanted to. As we grew older we attained summer jobs and other responsibilities but the summer was still the same. Now, every year at college, we anticipate going home for summer, to be with our family and friends, and escape from the everyday stresses of school.
As finals are approaching and the warmer weather is coming in, this year is no different. Students across campuses are waiting to take their last exams, turn in their last papers, and head home. But this summer will be different a little bit different.
This will be the last summer that everyone from your hometown will be together. The last summer before we graduate and start jobs and try to figure out our lives and our future. This summer will be the last "hoorah" before people start to move away, accept full-time jobs, and move onto other things. Not to say that this is the end, there will always be a summer season with warmer weather when people get together. But there is no guarantee that after this year, the summer will be the same.
Even with jobs, internships, and family events, it is important that you try to make time for those summer traditions that you and your friends have always had. Make sure to sleep in when you can, spend endless days on the beach, eat junk food, watch movies, stay up all night, travel and so much more. Do anything and everything you have been doing since you were younger as well as things you have never done before.
Yes, the summer is about taking a break from school, working to make some money, and doing internships to further your career. But for many people, it is a time to reconnect with the people that you have been close to your whole life, who you do not see nearly as much as you would like to.
So if you are a second-semester junior, really take the time to enjoy this summer. Plan trips, plan events, spend time with the people you love. Because before you know it it will be summer of 2017, we will have graduated, we will have "grown up" and we will all be searching for full-time jobs.
