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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Alabama chapter.

Somehow you managed to figure out how to navigate to class without getting hit by various cars, bikers and blonde girls not looking up from their cell phone walking. Somehow simultaneously learned that some professors like to hear themselves talk more than teach their class while also learning how to properly teach your professor a lesson by leaving a scathing review on RateMyProfessors. Somehow you finally passed that accounting class and somehow you got past the bouncer and got into that upperclassmen bar with your terrible fake ID. Somehow you made it to the golden age of 21 and got to shred your terrible fake ID with the kind of glee you should’ve had when you passed that accounting class. Somehow you look up from your phone walking to class to barely dodge a group of freshmen walking in a clump on their way to class. Somehow you have made it to your senior year of college. 

You can’t remember when the days morphed into months, the months morphed into years and you certainly can’t figure out how you morphed from a freshman to a senior. Memory gets worse with age, but it’s hard to pinpoint the blame on how the years escaped on whether it’s the getting old part or the constantly being down to get Innisfree $4 pitchers. Regardless of why your memory is hazy on how the long four years ahead turned into a quick time warp that seems to be finished before you’ve even got started – you’re now a senior and you’re scared.  There was adrenaline induced fear when you moved into the dorm that looked nothing like how you crafted it in your head. You got a tremble of terror when your mom gave you one last squeeze and reminded you to ‘please stay out of trouble, oh & do something about the musty smell in this room’ before walking out and leaving you on your own for the first time in eighteen years. There was an intense attack of nerves as you eyed the gates to hell – or as your squealing new pack of friends would rather refer to it – the gates to the fraternity where your first swap awaited you. You were scared sophomore year when you got written up by girls two years older than you in a sorority of ‘sisters’ because you accidentally tripped at a party and had to face judicials. You were terrified junior year when you looked at your blank, bare and boring LinkedIn and compared it to that girl in your class who casually (and slightly obnoxiously, in your opinion) kept bringing up how she interned with Ralph Lauren last summer and already has a job offer from an on the rise, high-end company in London. But there has been no scarier feeling than suddenly realizing you’re a senior and on the threshold of adulthood. 

Senior year is the final lap, the last item on the to do list and the unspoken reminder that you are nearing the beginning of having to be a real adult. It causes a twinge of fear that is similar to that feeling you get on Sundays when you have to face the reality of the upcoming week. It’s the day dedicated to dwelling on the things you should’ve done on Saturday when you were actually brunching and preparing for a night of antics. The Sunday Scaries. 

The senior scaries are similar because we now have to face the reality of the upcoming post-graduation in the very near distance. It’s the year dedicated to dwelling on all the things you should’ve done, but instead spent a lot of the four years brunching and having a lot of nights filled with antics that didn’t do much for your degree but certainly to your liver.  However, senior year shouldn’t be all scary. Don’t spend all year dwelling and wasting the precious few months between you and adulthood. 

Continue brunching because nothing shakes the scaries like mimosas.

Photo via Pexels

I'm a senior at the University of Alabama where I study Journalism and pursuing a minor in Political Science. While I love writing, politics are still growing on me. I'm originally from Gulfport, Mississippi but I have lived in four other states along with a brief stint in Dublin, Ireland. Outside of school I like to detox from homework with binge watching The Office, going (with lots of struggling) to Pilates classes and forcing my friends to watch rom-coms with me.
Kristen is a senior at The University of Alabama majoring in English and minoring in journalism and creative writing. She loves music festivals, reading, Alabama Football, and binge watching Food Network. She serves as Health Chair for the Beta Rho Chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon. After graduation, she will be moving to Indianapolis to teach through Teach For America.