Are Seniors ready to graduate?

BY RHIANNON MILLIARD

SC Contributing Writer

With midterms coming up rapidly, I can almost taste graduation. Is this a good or bad thing?

In my opinion, it all depends on who you ask. Being one of the seniors graduating, I can tell you from personal experience that I am so excited to walk across the stage, but I am terrified to walk out of college.

While I believe I have the skills needed to survive in this dog-eat-dog world, it is a lot to deal with all of a sudden.

Most of the seniors that I have spoken with say that they are constantly stressed out about graduating and have no idea what they are doing.

Which leads me to something everyone needs to be aware of when they are talking to a soon-to-be graduate: Please do not ask us what we are doing after graduation. You have good intentions; you care about us; you are curious.

I’m telling you, it sends our stress through the roof.

In all honesty, if we do not have a job lined up, we are trying to make any plan possible to find free food and hope our parents don’t mind us crashing back at home until we find a job.

Now I am not speaking of every single soon-to-be graduate, but for the most part we just spent anywhere from three to six years (on average) living through meal plans, on-campus housing, financial aid, and the glory that is Wawa.

Suddenly we are expected to find a job, move out, and support ourselves.

Some students have been doing that from day one.

Others lived on campus for four or more years. I am in the middle and I do not know what I am going to do.

When you stop to think about it, the majority of us graduating are between the ages of 21 and 24. We don’t have a lot of life experiences, and most of us don’t know how to live on our own.

So when you ask “What are you plans after graduation?” You’re sending us a reminder that we are completely lost. I’m not saying you should not ask us general questions about college ending.

Instead, I offer these following questions that can take their place:

• What did you like most about college?

• What are you going to miss the most?

• Did you make the most of your college experience?

• Are you ready for alumni tailgates? 

• What advice would you give your freshman year self?

I know I can’t speak on behalf of the entire graduating class, but all of the seniors that I talked to about this agree: we are ready to graduate, but we are not ready to grow up.

Email Rhiannon at:

rm0798@live.esu.edu