Opinion: With graduation approaching, seniors experience a mix of emotions
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The countdown to graduation is less than a month away. For seniors, it’ll be the close of one chapter and the opening of endless possibilities — a month filled with excitement, celebration and final goodbyes.
Graduation is extra special this year. For seniors who graduated high school mid-pandemic in 2020, we’re officially walking the stage in our caps and gowns.
Personally, I feel frazzled and panicked. And it isn’t just because of the job market. I’m jumping into the real world with unlimited freedom for the first time. I have to start adulting.
I hear the same broken-record questions: Are you excited to graduate? Where are you moving? Have you started looking for jobs? You’re going to miss your friends, aren’t you? I don’t know how to answer.
And I’m not the lone senior with these emotions. In an Instagram poll, someone said they’re “excited to start over, but nervous about post-grad depression.” Another is anxious because “the job market is pretty trash.” One senior described it as bittersweet: “I’m sad to leave my friends and not know when or if I’ll see them again.”
Believe it or not, PGAS — pre-graduation anxiety syndrome — is real. It addresses three points of time: We’re anxious for the future, stressed in the present and regretful about the past. PGAS isn’t necessarily scientific, but it’s reassuring to know I’m not alone.
All of this angst stems from one narrative: College is the best four years of your life. Now, if you’re on the other side, this sounds absurd. However, my greatest fear is reminiscing about my time at the University of Oregon, believing it was my peak.
I expressed my fears to Catherine Heising, who owns the Borealis stand at the Saturday Market. She laughed at the concept of college as a peak.
“Graduation, you’ll get through it. It’s sort of like a doorway,” Heising said. “You’ll just squeeze through it. And get out the other side and try to figure out life.”
And I think that’s the scariest thing of all. It’s the uncertainty of life. Since I was a young girl, my brain couldn’t comprehend life after education. It was my safety net. And now I’m supposed to walk into it head-on?
“It’s a big life change, and everyone has told you that this is the true beginning of adulthood. That’s scary … and exciting. Embrace the exciting side,” Joey McMurry, broadcasting director at the Oregon Sports Network and former UO student, said. “There’s always going to be scary unknowns, but the beginning of your professional career is something that can truly catapult you.”
There wouldn’t be a system set up where life isn’t fun post-grad. College may be a peak at this point in time, but not life as a whole.
Like Heising said, life is filled with monumental moments. Right now, being a market vendor is her peak. Thirty years ago, it was having her children. It’s always changing.
So maybe it’s that I have to say goodbye to my friends. Perhaps it’s the fear of working a big girl job. Or maybe it’s having to learn how to navigate real life, rather than just textbooks and group projects.
“Be a lifelong learner. Be patient, listen to people around you, and understand that things take time,” McMurry said. “Not everything happens quickly, and sometimes there are good reasons for that.”
Even at the end of this, I don’t have it figured out. But no one does at any age. So maybe that’s what’s bittersweet about graduation. You begin figuring out parts of life, one by one.