As these four years of college slowly come to an end (and by slowly, I mean at the speed of light), I have come to the realization that all the advice I have received over the years to prepare me for senior year are null and void now that I am actually a senior. Crazy right? Of course, there are those few times that I can apply what I have been told, but majority of the help has been quite opposite from my experiences. Why didn’t anyone properly prepare me for this emotional roller coaster of job searching one week and possibly trying to attempt to squeeze in time to party the next? Here are just three of the things that they forgot to teach us. Oh, and by “they”, that is a plural pronoun referring to any alive human being that was once a college senior and left out all the chaotic details.
3. That all these classes we’re taking mean nothing if you have no circle of networking.
Network. Network. Network. I began to notice this past summer going into senior year that employers tend to reach out to familiar faces, or at least faces that have been approved by a friendly source or another. It is all about getting out and meeting new people, establishing a relationship that will be able to vouch for you come interview day. The classes we take only make us slightly more credible to sit through training and learn everything all over again.
2. That you will be happy, sad, miserable, excited, and full of anxiety all at the same time. Each and every day. 8 months straight.
Now don’t get me wrong, we are very happy to be soon graduates, but the thought of life’s direction after graduation can be a bit frightening. One minute you’re happy and can’t wait to do your graduation check, and then the next you are sad reminiscing on freshmen year when you wished you were old enough to drink legally, live off campus happily (unbeknownst to us the part of paying bills), and just party hard like the upperclassmen. What naïve little fools we once were.
1. That “Enjoy your last year of school! ” really in translation means, “Maintain a 3.0 GPA, have a job lined up before you graduate or some sort of acceptance to Grad School, and still find time to enjoy yourself and relax as much as you can because there will be no such thing as relaxation time in the Real World.”
We get to this point in our lives that we feel entitled to make the most of this last year, when really it is a struggle finding a legit balance. Nonetheless, we are old enough to have the will power to persevere and make our parents proud. Well honestly, we are each determined to not be the friend whose life sucks more than the rest. Nonetheless, thanks Mom and Dad, for making us figure all of this out on our own. We just wish we would have known.