Vitamin C knows all about graduation. Apparently.
We’re more than halfway done with fall semester, and it’s only just starting to set in that I’m a senior, and that I’m graduating and that college is over. Ew? Yet the more I lie awake on sleepless nights in my small Larrabee room thinking about my time as a college student, the more I’m able to justify that my time has indeed come for me and my peers to graduate.
For once, I’m completely at ease walking around our small campus. Why it’s taken three years for me to reach this point, I don’t quite know. I’m not an extremely shy person, but being a senior truly changes things. As a freshman, I was constantly paranoid of my clothing choices, if my leopard print rain boots were too much, trying to discern the acceptable distance from which to say “Hi” in passing… I feel ridiculous admitting it, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only freshman who felt that way. I don’t feel that anymore.
I recall the times when I actually panicked over meeting with my faculty advisor, or worried about my feeble draft of a schedule for next semester classes. As a senior, I’ve mastered the 7:30 AM registration spiel… definitely one of my most satisfying accomplishments.
And after four years, I’ve finally got it down when it comes to rain on this campus. No more running to 10:25 AM classes ducked under a College Voice newspaper: that umbrella should stay in your Longchamp at all times.
At the same time, being a senior has had its share of challenges. Nobody told me what it would feel like to go from knowing maybe 40-50% of our campus, at least by face, to maybe an abysmal 25% after studying abroad and coming back to a campus with half of the juniors abroad. On top of this, there is also an overwhelming number of sophomores you may or may not have met during your one semester prior or post-studying abroad and, of course, all those new freshmen.
But on that note, if you’re still on the fence about going abroad or not, allow me to help you: go. It still baffles me that the classes and trips I took over the course of that semester are permissibly counted towards my “liberal arts college in New England” education. The growing experience is so much more than a paragraph could ever describe. I will forever urge those who have the chance not to pass up the opportunity.
Unlike the sensation felt in one’s senior year of high school when you think you’re cool and “‘bouts to graduate,” being a senior in college is an altogether different feeling.
The glamorized underage drinking is old news, Saturday night Cro dance hookups are now passé and honestly, very little shocks me anymore. I honestly wonder sometimes, “What’s wrong with me? How am I already feeling too old for college?” But it’s true, and I never saw it coming.
Sometimes I just try to think back to the time when I, too, was naïve to the point of trying to keep track of what “PBR” actually stood for (Pabst Blue Ribbon), and setting urbandictionary.com as one of my top Safari sites just because I was looking up so many “foreign terms” I would encounter on a daily basis in my new college habitat. But hey, I still managed to make friends, so I can’t be all that abnormal.
During spring semester of my sophomore year, one of my close friends and I started counting down the days until the end of the semester, freaking out more and more as each day passed: we could not even begin to fathom life outside of college. I even kept another date in my iPhone “Countdown” app for our real big graduation. It’s still in my phone, and I still check it out every now and then.
But the ever-dwindling number means little to me at this point. After my summer internship and eight months abroad, the campus bubble has been burst. I may not have my diploma yet, but I’ve already mentally graduated from Connecticut College. I’m not really writing this opinionated article (which, by the way, is something I never would have done as an underclassmen either…it’s usually far safer to write a News article) in an attempt to “advise” underclassmen or anything. On the contrary, I think it takes every single one of these four undergraduate years to reach this point of fatigue.
I’ve admired a number of people who have managed to complete their degrees in less than four years, and even envied them to a point. But on the other hand, I’m glad I haven’t opted or been forced to make that choice. The longer I’m here, the more I realize that college is so disproportionately more about the academics than it is about the socializing and lifelong friendships you can make.
I may feel ready to graduate for the time being, but until that day comes, I’ll continue enjoying the “Harris at 5:45?” dinner texts for a few more months. Less than 210 days and counting… •
