17 Mayýs 2010, Pazartesi
saat: 06:42
Over the past few months, I've written a lot about how nervous I am to graduate, to leave college for good, and enter the real world.
You know, I always thought I wanted to attend graduate school and work towards a higher degree in Political Science. I spent the entire fall semester working on taking the GRE exam, filling out graduate applications (and spending major money on sending them out!), and writing the most intense essay of my undergraduate career to send along to my program choices. In the midst of all this, I spoke with my academic advisor who told me "don’t worry about it – I think you’ll get in wherever you want, you’ll have the option to choose where you want to go. You’ll do great.” Despite the stress and pressure I felt from all this, her reassurance told me to expect the best and relax about my future.
But no, as usual, whenever I expect the best, I got slammed by the worst: I exhausted the bulk of my spring semester reading online news articles highlighting that universities across the nation received more graduate applications than in years before – making those already-hard-to-get seats for social sciences M.A. and PhD programs even harder to get into (most programs only accept between 12-30 students per year anyway). And then came the rejection letters. After spending the last four years with endless awards and acceptances, this came as a huge shock for me; and it hurt.so bad.
Finally, I got accepted, but there was another problem: due to this silly recession, they could not offer any funding; and I've felt scared, nervous, anxious and stressed about the economy, and how the heck I am going to get a scholarship. Completing four years for an undergraduate degree with a 4.0 CGPA just seemed useless.
Now college is practically over and I don't exactly know what the next step is, but I think I’m finally ready for it. Yes, I'm still scared and nervous, but I'm surprised at how excited I am starting to feel. And yes, a small part of me still wants to crawl up in the fetal position, turn on Norah Jones, and weep irrationally. Sitting at our graduation, I remember thinking, "how is this end? It just doesn’t feel real. I’m still waiting to wake up in my old dorm room, 4 years ago". I wasn't ready to say 'see you later', let alone saying 'goodbye'.. But now, a bigger part of me wants to dance my face off to the Vitamin C graduation song, Jay Z’s legit version of Forever Young or Asher Roth’s I love College. I've had the best time over the past four years. I literally cannot imagine my life any differently. When I applied for this program, leaving my comfort zone for a college over 6,000 miles across the world was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. But it was also the best decision I've ever made. I knew no one and had no friends. But four years later, I've found a network of teachers, mentors, and peers that have helped me grow into the person I want to be.
Who knows what my life would be like without the people I've met or the experiences I've had here?
I know, a lot of doors may have closed on me, but I do have goals – and some hope left. Despite all my reservations about leaving the wonderful world of college behind, during this commencement weekend I was also really, really, fantastically excited to graduate. I have already made a proactive step of creating a list of things that I know I absolutely won’t miss- that way I’ll remember that there were some bad things about college. The list includes -OMG- so many things: downright freezing upstate NY weather, my floor-length coat, shower shoes, 'awesomeness' of dining hall food, group projects (agh, I cannot even stand the sight of those creative unorganized people who always think they’re right!), this pressure to party (or drink every day that ends in Y), frat boys and their popped collars, the boy next door and his too-noisy girlfriend,yada yada yada.. So, yes, while the list isn’t exactly complete yet (I still have to add a few people’s names) it’s definitely a start for my post-graduation-recovery, I guess.
