It's the week before finals and the end of the semester, so naturally, everyone is stressed out and swamped with papers, projects, presentations, and the impending gloom of exams. Every other person on my Facebook and Twitter timelines is lamenting how stressed they are, how they can't wait for the semester to end, how they're so ready to graduate. In previous semesters of my college career, I was apt to agree with these posts. Honestly, I may have even posted something similar. But this semester, my feelings are pretty drastically different.
This semester, I'm suffering from reverse senioritis. I'm sure you've heard the term senioritis: the feeling of being fed up with school, typically as a senior, and the readiness to move onto the next stage of your life. That's just the thing— I'm experiencing the exact opposite.
I love college. I love being surrounded by people my own age and living in the same town (within the same block, really) as all my friends. I love the freedom to schedule my class times at will, the independence, and the flexibility of my days. If I want to take a midmorning nap between my 9 a.m. class and my 1 p.m. class, so be it. When else is this possible (or appropriate) other than college? I've become so accustomed to this lifestyle, and I honestly dread the day that it isn't the norm anymore.
I come from a very small, very rural town in Pennsylvania where there isn't really a ton of opportunity to meet new, diverse people. I go to school in Virginia, where I've met some of the best friends I've ever had. Once we graduate and move back to our respective states, spending time together won't be as easy as sending a "come over for 'Grey's Anatomy' and wine" text. Speaking of wine... I'll definitely miss the acceptability of going out as much as I do, too.
I think it was registering for my final semester of classes that made the reality of my upcoming graduation really set in. Ever since then, I've been trying to pause and take everything in whenever I can. I want to remember the exact feeling of walking across campus at 9:45 a.m. to make it to class on time; the exact feeling of eating lunch in the dining hall with my friends; even the exact feeling of staying in the library past midnight to study for an exam or to finish a paper. I'm trying not to resent any college experience, no matter how tedious or stressful, because I know for a fact that at this time next year, I'll want nothing more than to be back in college. As the country singer Trace Adkins so eloquently put it in his song "You're Gonna Miss This" (which may or may not have made me cry last week...), "These are some good times, so take a good look around. You may not know it now, but you're gonna miss this."
