With the start of a new year, I think it is important to set intentions for the months ahead. This year is an especially big one for me. I will be graduating from UC Davis in June and starting my life outside the protective walls of being a college student. With this big change coming up, I started to think about what I wanted to get out of my last months in Davis. Things I wanted to do and experiences I wanted to have. I also began to think about my goals for my life after. After I graduate and start a whole new chapter in my life that I have never experienced before. This is a big year for New Year’s “resolutions” (I prefer to call them New Year’s Intentions) for me, and I wanted to share a few of them with you.
My first intention is to get the most out of my college education here at UC Davis. I had a professor tell the class once, “People always say to get the most out of your money, but why don’t they ever apply that to school?” As anyone in college knows, we pay a lot of money to be here. The professor went on to say that we are essentially paying for things, such as professors’ office hours, then not utilizing them and using them to get what we need. That is one of my goals for this year — use the money I am paying to get everything I need to succeed at UC Davis. For me, this is going to look like going to professors’ office hours and making those connections with them.
My next intention is to soak up as much of Davis culture as I can. There are so many amazing parts of Davis, and I feel like the past year and a half I have spent here, I have not been appreciating it. So, this year, I want to go to the Farmer’s Market as much as possible. If you haven’t tried the apple juice from there, it is phenomenal. Second, I want to not just study in my room, but go sit in one of the many amazing coffee shops Davis has to offer. Philz is one of my favorite places to go, and I definitely do not go as much as I should. I also want to try new restaurants, new stores, and really explore Davis during my last couple of months of living here.
Moving onto my intentions for the next phase of my life: Post-grad life. I am planning on taking a gap year, and starting grad school in the Fall of 2024. This means I will spend half of this year not in school. That is the longest time I have been out of school in my whole life. On one hand, this is scary. To think about not having the structure of school and knowing what I have to do each day. I will be entering the unknown. I am planning on getting a full-time job, which will be a big adjustment from being a full-time student. I have worked all through college, but it has always been part-time, and always worked around my school schedule. This is also exciting. I will be starting a new adventure, working in a new environment, with new people, and navigating a new chapter in my life. With all this being said, my intention after I graduate is to accept both good and bad feelings. I know it will be a lot, graduating, starting work, and applying for grad schools, and I want to go into it with the goal of just accepting and embracing all the feelings that come along with this big life transition.
2023 is a big year for me. Setting these intentions helps to alleviate some of the stress that comes along with big life changes. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone to make connections with the professors here at UC Davis, I want to explore and appreciate the wonderful places Davis has to offer, and I want to accept all the feelings that come with the transitions I will be facing this year. I hope reading my intentions for the year helps you to start thinking: “What are my New Year’s intentions for 2023?”