It feels like just yesterday I was driving from Colorado to Lincoln to tour the University of Nebraska, let alone moving into my freshman dorm a short year after that. Now, I sit here and write this to you in between my homework for capstone courses. Yes, you read that right, capstone courses. I have one final semester here at UNL and to be quite honest with you, it’s a kinda scary pill to swallow. In high school, most people knew where they were heading next- whether it was the university they chose to go to or the job they decided to start. I had a direction- furthering my education in Lincoln, Nebraska. However, the thing that makes graduating college slightly more frightening is the idea of not having a solid direction and being the type A, need a plan for everything woman that I am, that terrifies me. But in many ways, there’s something beautiful in knowing that life after college doesn’t need a definite plan. Life is now an endless array of option and choice. You could literally go anywhere in the world and do whatever you want. However, I think that is what a lot of us are slightly fearful of, there’s so much choice. There are so many options in front of us that we haven’t even heard of, options that we don’t even know is out there. How do we feel fulfilled in what we’re doing when so many of us don’t know what we want quite yet? How do we avoid falling back on what’s comfortable and secure to us? When people ask me my year in school, it still feels unnatural to say “Senior.” It feels even more unnatural to say the words “Graduation” and “Bachelors Degree.” In many ways, I still feel like a freshman. Sometimes even a freshman in high school. I look around a wonder where all the time went. I think about all the different ways I would walk to class and all the different courses I took. I think about all the academic and study abroad appointments I went to in order to see if I could study abroad for a semester and still graduate in 3.5 years. I could. So I went. I think about the friendships I’ve made over the years and I think about how things have changed and what has stayed the same. Being a senior in college is so many things. It’s scary, it’s exciting, it’s nostalgic, it’s feeling like a grandma when all you want to do is go to sleep at 10pm. I often joke that I don’t want to talk about the fact that I’m graduating in a few months which in some regard is true because there is a piece of me that is sad, but I think it’s more a feeling of surprise. The time slips through your fingertips fast, so enjoy every single second. Embrace the moments that make you happy, embrace the moments that make you feel uncomfortable, embrace the nerves you get when you’re about to give a class presentation. Look around you. You are right here. You are right here, right now. Don’t worry about what’s due next week, don’t worry about that exam that’s a month from now. Work today. And work hard. Work hard right now to get you closer to the goals you have for yourself and whatever you do, don’t forget how lucky you are to be exactly who you are in this place. Graduating is scary. Growing up is scary. But enjoying what you have right now is so, so wonderful and we can’t take that for granted.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UNL chapter.