Life After College

After 17 years of school, you are just about ready to call it all quits. Good thing it's your last semester of college. Instead of writing that 10 page research paper, you daydream about how good life is going to be once you graduate. No more teachers. No more text books. And best of all, no more tests. Oh yeah, life is gonna be good.

Reality Check!

I have been graduated for four months and this is what I have learned. School doesn't end! The world becomes your classroom, except you don't know who your teacher is, there is no syllabus, and every test is a surprise. Of course, there are no grades, but if you mess up it could mean your career.

You don't realize how easy school really is. True! You live in low rent housing, you go to class, you have a job that gives you enough money for what you need, you don't need a car, you aren't paying for insurance, you don't have to worry about what you are going to be doing in four months. You get to be around people your own age, and do fun and crazy things with them. It's so nice to be in that kind of environment.

Then you graduate. Maybe you move to a new city, maybe you move home to live in your parents' basement. Maybe you have a job, maybe an internship, or maybe you have to start out pounding pavements. Your future is hazy, and you can't see past the next bend in the road. And you're wishing you were back in school . . .

Being a college grad isn't all bad. You finally realize how stupid grades are. You have freedom to do what you want in the evenings when you get home from work. No homework! You no longer have that guilty feeling that comes when you are out having fun and the 100 pages of reading you haven't done yet crosses your mind. You can read whatever you want, at whatever pace is takes--you finally enjoy reading the classics. You can gloat over all your college friends as they complain about finals. You finally feel as if your life can move forward now, instead of just remaining stagnant.

Yes, life after college can be scary, and hard. But it can be fun too. I like knowing that I made it through college and now have a BA. Sometimes I think about college and wish that I were still there, but it doesn't last long.

The past is in the past, and the future is before me.