Every time I find myself freaking out, I listen to the Ottis Redding song, “A Change is Gonna Come.” In this huge time of change–graduating, applying for graduate school, thinking about next semester and Imperfect Concepts–I find myself unsettled by all of the “stuff.” I’m happy to be out of college, as most kids are, but I am deeply sad about what’s to come next. I don’t know if I will find the same kinds of people who want to talk to me about semi-colons, linguistics or poetry in the big world outside academia. I’m scared I won’t have a support system of students, faculty and awesome professors to help me out all the time. Point Park University has become a family to me, and I am afraid of being on my own. If there is anyone out there feeling the stress of graduating too, read on.
Things change all the time, but I still want to cling back to the familiar parts of life. I love going to school everyday and being busy. I think writing papers is fun, and I enjoy heated in-class discussions. (BECAUSE I’M CRAZY). However, it’s not just school change that is haunting me lately.
Throughout my entire college experience, I’ve lived 2,000 miles away from my family. I see them occasionally like on Christmas, but mostly I have been doing this college thing on my own. All I want is for them to feel proud of me. I know that some of them understand the stuff I went through to get a college education, like working two jobs and fighting through six classes a semester. I want to reach out to them in some way now that I’ve graduated, but I’m scared they wont know who I am anymore. I’ll come back to them a changed person and they’ll still view me as a little girl who went to college for a “stupid” creative writing degree. In a phrase, I’m scared my degree wont mean anything.
I’m also scared about my boyfriend. I know, after coming from a place of maturity… I have to go and talk about the boyfriend. It’s a very real stress of mine though! I’ve been dating the same guy for three years–ALL OF COLLEGE. He’s awesome, but at the same time, he still has a semester left of school after I graduate. He’s staying in Pittsburgh, and I might be moving. I don’t know where I’m moving yet, but if I get into a graduate school like Louisiana State University, we’re going to have to have the “should we move together or not conversation.” Please… I know what you’re thinking. Just leave the opinions for the comments below.
I’ve already stated that I’m pretty crazy. I just think we all feel these ways, and people don’t really talk about it. A lot of people pass the end of college off as no big thing, and then move on to the next stage of life without paying the proper respects to the past. All phases need to be met with some kind of self reflection. This is mine, hopefully it inspires you to do the same.
The last thing that I’m scared about is that my professors will stop being my mentors. I am in their office a lot, having intellectual conversations about poetry and life, I ask them advice on everything, I go over to their houses for dinner. I have developed a really strong relationship with them. I don’t want to loose that. I’m sad I won’t be seeing them everyday.
As it says in the song, life goes on, and sometimes bad things happen and sometimes good things happen. The only thing you can count on is change. But, it’s OK to be sad about it, and it’s OK to reflect on a really good phase in your life.
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