Graduating in the fall is not the greatest thing in the world. I would have rather finished school in the spring and walked across the graduation stage with the rest of my friends. Instead, I had to come back for one last term.
It’s kind of like limbo. I’m a senior, but not in the conventional sense of the word. Friends and co-workers younger than I am are considered seniors, but there is no word for what I am. If there is, it’s almost certainly derogatory.
So here I am — an old, grizzled veteran of the higher education wars, serving out my last tour of duty before I’m shipped off to the real world. And let me tell you, I’ve seen glimpses of the real world. Frightening stuff.
So to all of you out there still slaving away in classes, getting drunk on weekends and trying to keep your head above water, I say this: Keep at it. Live out your college experience to the fullest. As winter break gets closer and with it my graduation, there isn’t a minute that goes by that I don’t wish I could go back and change some of the choices I made in my college career.
Among other things, I should have: studied for that test, not drunk all that beer, finished up that incomplete, not had that one-night stand, gone to more home football games, finished that Information Gathering class in one try instead of three, not slacked off that important paper to play video games (a true waste), spent my summer in exotic locales instead of in classrooms taking classes, and gotten my driver’s license (that one hurts).
If you’re a senior this year, or just starting out as a freshman, you’ll probably read a lot of columns like this one. They all are pretty much the same: “Learn from my mistakes! Don’t take the road I went down!” “Study hard and you’ll go far!” “Internship, internship, internship!”
Well, this one is rather like that, except for one thing. I loved every minute of my college life. The nervous sweats, the hangovers, the research, the failures, the successes, all of it. I wouldn’t trade it for all the money in the world. And I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to live your life here at the University. Everyone has his or her own experiences; each of us takes away something different from what we experience.
Be a geek. Be a jock. Be a Greek. Be a studious overachiever. Be a slacker. It doesn’t matter in the long run because you’ll probably never see any of these people again, despite their assurances. So go nuts. You’ll never get this chance again, unless you make a living at it.
You don’t have to listen to me. I’m surprised if you even made it this far. So this is the gist: no regrets. Don’t worry about it now because there are far more frightening things on the horizon. Don’t get what I’m saying? Don’t worry — you will some day.