Senior year is the year of late nights, early mornings, missed classes, and days spent reminiscing about how your university was so different when you were a freshman. You’re now at least twenty one, as are the majority of your friends, and you’ve exhausted all of the on-campus parties and off-campus bars. You’ve become the big fish in the small pond they call your campus, and you might as well be the head of the food chain as far as the freshmen you intimidate are concerned.
It’s already been established that as a senior, you’re not a girl not yet a woman, but that part of the strange-in-between stage they call our early twenties. But that doesn’t stop you from making sure that you won’t be mistaken as a freshman by any poor delusional 18 year old at a frat party that is looking for some reason to talk to you. (“Are you a freshman?”….. “Leave me alone”) There’s the patriarchal and antiquated notion that women lose value as they age, making them less appealing to men when there’s younger women in the mix. Mothers have always told us that men are on the look out for the younger and hotter model, and craving hamburger when they have steak. So how does that affect the dating and hook-up culture that surrounds college life? If you know, and have it all figured out, please share. I know thousands of other seniors would appreciate the advice.
Think back to your first day of freshman year. If you were anything like I was, you were scared, naive, and more than a little anxious about the prospect of fitting in. Now four years later, besides obviously being four glorious years older, the prospect of parties and events that once excited you freshman year now fill you either with dread or just memories of the dozens of times you’ve already done them. The double standard of senior women dating freshmen boys is in a sharp contrast to senior guys dating freshmen girls. As one friend put it, when you were a freshmen the world was your oyster. Now as a senior, you’ve found out that oysters aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
You haven’t outgrown your campus just yet, but each year you’ve watched upperclassmen leave the safety net of the known to venture out into the immensity that is the real world. The very idea that you’re about to do the same and leave the place that you’ve called home for four years is absolutely terrifying, and anyone that tells you differently is either blissfully ignorant or just plain stupid. Some seniors go through the stage of wanting to make the most of every weekend by going out every night of the week, spending time with every friend they’ve ever made, and letting the good times roll. Some don’t. Neither of those phases are wrong, nor are they going to help you process and deal with the fact that your life at college is about to become radically different once graduation happens.
It seems so obvious, but do what ever makes you happy. Spend time with the people you love, make amends with those that you don’t, and enjoy the time you have left with them. Get off the Internet, as fun and distracting as it may be, and make real connections. Dream beyond your limits, but remember that a goal without a plan is a wish that will go unfulfilled. Remember that college is like what Shel Silverstein told us, “There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, so just give me a happy middle and a very happy start.” Find that middle and let it never end.