Everyone, including myself, was ready to be out of school. The long hours of studying, weight gain from eating your stress away, and two hours of sleep each night thanks to the late night study sessions, we were all ready to be done. What I didn’t think of was the nostalgic feeling afterward. Seems weird to even say that, nostalgic, it seems foreign to even think it capable of fitting in the same sentence with end of college life. Let us take a closer look into this nonsense I am talking about.
1) Friends
Friends come and go, as we all know, but there is something about the friends you meet in college that make you miss the time you spend together in class. I think it has something to do with the fact that we are all older and more aware of what we want in life so therefore we find people with similar attributions and you just click. Sounds cliché but I think you will all agree. After college is over everyone goes their separate ways so now those friends you used to lean on during your anxiety attacks and late nights studying have gone back to their families. You keep telling each other how you’re going to catch up soon but in reality we know that’s highly unlikely because our lives are completely hectic and your schedules will never match up.
2) No expectations from family members/acquaintances
I think it is safe to say that during college people don’t really expect more from you than to ace that next exam. Your mundane café job is just fine because, well, you’re in college. Once you are done with college everyone asks what you are doing to get out of that café job and what jobs you are applying for. The next best thing is the unintentional disappointed face they make when you tell them you haven’t found you’re “big kid job” and how you haven’t taken your state exam yet. It would be great to get the response that actually makes you feel good about your small accomplishment of getting through college instead of the dreaded “oh” that usually follows. Because that totally helps drive your ambition; not.
3) Ambition/Goals
I have noticed that since I have officially been done with my second major I have lost sight of my ambition. During school I had the drive to complete my degree and had ideas of what I would do once I was finished, but now all those goals of what I want to do after college have faded away. It is actually pretty upsetting. I can’t seem to get myself to get it together and make those dreams a reality. Part of me thinks it is the whole not wanting to grow up psychological effect that graduating has seemed to bring out. I want these crazy dreams of a good career and social life to come true but that little part of my brain wants me to keep life simple and stay at the same boring college job.
4) Learning
That’s right, you read that correctly, I miss learning. I love to learn. I love finding out how things work and love asking the question why but actually picking up a book to learn seems impossible unless I have to do it. That is one thing I actually liked about school, I hated having to do it but I loved the knowledge I gained from it afterward. I really don’t believe that there is any better accomplishment than learning new things and being able to share those things with the people around you. I wish I had the motivation to take it upon myself and pick up a book/read an article on something new because I do honestly miss the constant feed of information.
5) The uniform
This one may sound strange but I actually miss our uniform. Being in the medical field, as most of you know, you are most likely going to be wearing scrubs every day at work. For some odd reason I miss waking up every day and putting that uniform on. I know once I get the job I want I will be wearing scrubs once again, but as I said before my lack of ambition is truly horrendous. The scrubs gave me an odd feeling of accomplishment, like I actually was someone in this crazy world. So, as strange as it sounds, I miss the scrubs.
Being out of school has been pretty hard on me psychologically. During school I was always stressed out but now that it is done I almost feel like I have nothing to really look forward to. I went to get a degree and start something new, so I did. Now what do I do? I know I need to take my boards and get a better job but those goals seem impossible at the moment. So how can I fix that? I also miss the support I had during school. Between my family and the people I met in the classes the support I have now is practically nonexistent. The “you can do this, you’re almost there!” and the “don’t worry, everything will work out just fine” bursts of inspiration have turned into the dreaded and completely unwanted questions such as, “why haven’t you taken your test yet?”, “have you found a new job?” and, “what are you doing to achieve these things?” I miss the ambition, the friends, the excitement and lack of high expectations from others, the uniform, and the learning that came with it all. I want it all back, just minus the exhausting stress that came with it.
Moral of the story, I miss college.
Where do I go from here?
