I'm going to be honest, I never thought the day would finally come where I could say that I have less than five months left in the education system. In five months I will officially be done with schooling. In five months I will never have to take another exam or write another close reading paper. I won't have homework or readings. This all sounds insane to me. Don't get me wrong I am super excited to graduate with a bachelor's degree but it just seems strange. Schooling is all I have known for the page fifteen years, what am I supposed to do without its constant presence in my life?

It has recently become very apparent to me that I need to prepare for the real world. I need to have a real job and I need to be able to pay my own rent (Shout out to my parents who have been helping me financially while I am still a full-time student!). The time has finally come for me to have an answer to the question, "What do you want to do with your life?"

School has always been a safety net and soon it will be taken out from under me. I will receive a crisp piece of paper and I will add one extra line on to my resume and then I'm on my own. These last four years of college have been training me for that moment but am I really, truly, one hundred percent prepared?

But I am also so ready to finally take on all the world has to offer me. There are so many opportunities have I have had to turn down because of school and the obligations that go along with that. Finally, I will be able to say yes to things that I never could before. I am excited to have the whole world in front of me to explore. But what do I explore first?

All of these thoughts and so much more have been swimming through my head as I have sat in my childhood bed this winter break. Usually, winter break is all relaxation but the thought of graduation has been looming over me every day. The idea that soon I will be displaced from the place I've called home for the past four years and I'll be forced to move on. That I only have about four and a half months to soak everything in and make sure to make everything count. To make sure that I stay on top of my classes and that I don't give up so close to the end.

My goal in my last semester of college is to make in my best semester. Wring out every last bit of school that I can get before I have to become an official adult (whatever that means). Sure there is graduate school but really, who has the money for that?