Three weeks in and I’m ready to leave.
1. There will be panic.
It starts out slowly but then everything you have to do creeps in. Senior thesis. Classes. Work. Clubs. That internship you put off until this year and now have to add that to your schedule (and jump through all the hoops to do so). By the end of the first week, you will be worn out and ready to snap. In my case, I proceeded to scream into a soft cloud pillow before resuming reading for World Literature.
2. Ugh. Freshmen.
They’re young, eager to learn, make new friends, and are naïve as well. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, they know nothing of the trials and tribulations you and your peers have endured. It reads on your face with the weary, weathered and glazed over look in your eyes. Once, you too were eager to join all the clubs, go to all the events and make all the friends, but thanks to papers, tests, all-nighters while juggling all those extra things you threw into your schedule, you just want to sleep forever. Yet you allow them to be excited and say nothing, they will soon learn. Soon.
3. Forget partying.
If you think this is the year to keep partying, think again. Maybe you’ve been lucky and have been able to continue your fun-loving ways throughout your schooling and be okay, but not this year. This is the year where you have to buckle down and get to work so you can actually graduate. You’re not drinking that beer as a social thing; you’re drinking that beer because you’re going to need a drink to help you to finish those 15-20-page papers before midnight, alright?
4. That one person in class.
We all have known one. That one person in class that you’ve been forced to suffer through for four years. Their comments in class are terrible, they think they’re wonderful, and you just want to get up and leave the classroom if they so much as speak one word. By the time senior year rolls around, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep all your feelings of irritation and distress from their presence and pretentiousness under wraps. Still, you manage to keep your feelings to yourself, save for the skeptical look you occasionally throw in their direction.
5. That other person.
You know who you are. The person whose senior year of university is going smoothly, the person that thinks that it’s so easy. That had no troubles this year or any other year throughout their entire career of university and thus annoys everyone in the process because they fail to recognize not everyone is having as easy of a time as they are. The person that I know is going to comment on this article and tell me how easy senior year was for them and how my article is inaccurate as a result. Before you do, just stop. Stop right now. Your last year was easy, good for you. You’re the reason I cry myself to sleep at night.
6. Existential crisis.
The fear has already sunk in about what’s going to happen when you graduate, and you’re in crisis. Thoughts such as “Will I be able to find a job?” “Do I still want to continue down the path I’ve been on for years?” “What am I going to do with my life?” “What am I doing with my life right now?” “Life is futile in the vast cosmos, why am I even worrying about this?” will cycle through your head. You will be left to sit there, staring out into space as you fear your future in the midst of dinner while your friends wonder why you look as if your soul has been sucked out of your body.
7. You get used to it, and you know you’ll miss it.
Once you’ve accepted your feelings of dread and existential crisis, you know you’re going to miss the college life. Not having to get up at 8 a.m. for a job, the flexibility to take courses that challenged but interested you, the friends you’ve made and the memories that came with it. You’re on the precipice of becoming a full-fledged adult, the waters of the rest of your life murky and misty beneath you. Eventually you’re going to have to dive in, but for now sit down, breathe, and maybe scream into the distance.