At this time three years ago, I was arguably the most nervous I’d ever been in my life. I knew that once the first of August rolled around, it was the beginning of the end. I would have to start saying my goodbyes to family, promising them I’d see them when I was home for breaks, leaving them with my brand new address for care packages. I would have to meet up with friends from high school to mutually establish that no matter who we met in college, nothing would change between us. Some of those meetings would be the last time I saw those people aside from accidentally in the grocery store or via their changed relationship status on Facebook.
The night before I left for college, as I was saying goodbye to my best friend, I threw up in the bushes in my backyard. The emotions and anxiety were a necessary evil, and I knew that they were inevitable but that didn’t help my uncertainty. The questions being posed to me on a daily basis kept repeating through my mind: “Where are you going to college? What are you majoring in? What do you want to do with that? Are you nervous? Are you excited? These are going to be the best years of your life.” I would rehearse the answers in my head each night. Maybe if I kept saying them over and over, I would eventually believe myself.
The truth was that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Yes, I trusted that I made the right decision for which college to go to. Yes, I was confident that I would eventually be able to create a new routine for myself, but as recently as a few months before, I couldn’t even use the restroom without my teacher’s permission. I wasn’t even trusted to drive my car after 9 p.m. (a New York State rule), but now I’m living essentially on my own, 400 miles away from home.
After a very tearfully said goodbye to my family, I walked by myself back to my dorm room and I sat on my bed. As I looked around my small, cinder block room, covered in happy memories from my hometown, I wondered if this is what being an adult was like. I was thrust into a situation that was odd and new with a bunch of strangers who were just as unsure if they were doing everything the right way. Would the “best years of my life” really feel this way, seemingly alone and scared?
My entire first semester was a period of uncertainty, mainly because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I ended up changing my major twice, once in the first semester, once in the second, which led to even more anxiety about my future. I thought that it meant that since I had been wrong about what I wanted the first two times, I was failing. It was hard enough to admit to myself that I was unhappy, let alone keeping everyone up to date about what I was “majoring in this week.” I felt like I was constantly having to explain and justify my actions to others, and provide reasoning for the decisions I was making, which made me even less willing to talk about what I was doing. I was already constantly second-guessing myself and the possibility of disapproval would’ve only made matters worse.
After my high school graduation, I was made to believe that going to college somehow transformed me into a grown person who should be capable of doing mostly everything on their own. It was as if weeks before that I wasn’t being reprimanded for having my uniform shirt untucked. There were incredible amounts of pressure to make decisions for the sake of haste that could potentially alter my entire future. Something about that seemed off to me. Fortunately, I came to understand with the help of many different people, that it was alright that I didn’t have anything figured out yet, because no one else did either. It wasn’t until I realized that being unsure about the future was pure normalcy on college campuses that I finally eased up and embraced it.
My senior year of undergrad is starting in a few weeks and I’ve already noticed that the questions seem to be sneaking their way back into vernacular. Just as I have grown and changed throughout my college career, so have they; “What are you majoring in? Do you really think you’re going to be able to make money? What are your plans after graduation? Isn’t graduate school expensive? Are you still living at home with your parents? Don’t you want to get married? When are you planning on having kids?”
I’m here to tell you that from what I’ve gathered from the people closest to me and others I’ve asked is that the resounding consensus is still unsure. This is not from a lack of trying, but from an abundance of uncontrollable variables. A student can do everything in their power that should traditionally allow them to succeed: earn good grades, complete several relevant internships, network, etc. but there are no guarantees that they’ll get a job, let alone even work in their field.
The difference between answering the questions then and now is that the time to “not really know” what you want to do is growing near. With each year, the pressure builds up along with the guilt. What is especially confounding is that just a few years ago, the same people who told you that you were “young, and still had time to decide” are the same people who are suddenly being accusatory and judgmental towards your choices.
Senior year is a new beginning of the end. My fellow students and I are moving away from the “acceptable levels of immaturity” end of the spectrum and are headed towards whatever everyone else’s definition of “adulthood” is at a scary-fast pace. Ready or not, real world, here we come. We are armed with our impossible dichotomy of desperately wanting to please everyone while operating under supreme indifferent conditions.
What I hope for us is that we find something that we love to do and somehow find a way to make money at it. I hope that we can live in a world with less unnecessary concern about the business of others. If we choose to become parents, I hope that we can raise our children to take a breath and answer their questions calmly, with no regard for the opinions of the condescending. I hope that they know that it’s OK to teeter on that line of needing to be responsible for as long as they possibly can, and to have fun without feeling guilt.
Ultimately, I hope they realize from a very early age, that it’s OK to be young and unsure, because no matter what anyone says or how they act, they’ve all been there. Some of those question-askers still are, they just do a decent job of hiding it.
