Starting my freshman year here at St. Bonaventure, I was already ready to graduate.
After graduating high school, the thought of going back to school for at least another four years already had me thinking about the day I would graduate and finally be done with school for good. I was so ready to be done with school that I took a bunch of college classes in high school, took extra classes each semester here, and even took classes over the summer so I could graduate earlier.
But now that I am already a junior and am so ahead on my credits that I can graduate this spring, I wish I wasn’t so ahead, so I could stay here a little longer. If I could go back, I wouldn’t have taken those extra classes, and I wouldn’t have done everything I could to graduate as soon as possible. Instead, if I could go back, I would have done everything I could to give myself more time here at SBU.
I would do anything to give myself one more year here that I am supposed to have, so I could finish my SBU experience with the rest of my class. Now that I am graduating with an entirely different class, I won’t have any of the senior experiences with my friends that I started college with. I won’t be able to graduate with my friends, have an off-campus living experience with my roommates, or even take another class with any of my friends who will still be here next year. I am missing out on an entire year with my best friends at my favorite place in the world.
Along with being sad about missing out on another year I could have spent here at SBU, the thought of graduating this year now scares me. For me, graduating with my bachelor’s degree means the end of everything that I have ever known and means the start of a new life.
Yes, I will still be a college student after graduating this spring, as I am going to graduate school to get my master’s degree. But for me, this is not the same. I will not really be a young college student next year; I will be an adult.
Although I know that nothing really will drastically change right away after graduating, it doesn’t feel like that. Graduating feels like I’m starting an entirely new life, and I really am.
For me, graduating means the start of my real life.