Is Graduation Good?

The biggest thing I have noticed from my fellow graduates is a negative outlook on graduating, especially for those not continuing on to graduate schools.  Personally, I know I have felt the same way from time to time and these feelings are apparently termed the "Post-Grad Blues."

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It's definitely a huge change to go from being in school every year to all of a sudden not having that security blanket to go back to in the Fall.  Most of us have been consistently in school since kindergarten, so school has taken a good majority (around 17 years) of our life.  For the first time we're heading out on our own to meet the world without the protection of school or our parents.  Instead of looking for 'jobs' we're searching for 'careers.'  And in doing so, we are looking for our future, and that's a bit daunting at 21/22 years old.  Especially after having the freedom in college to hang out and party with your friends whenever you wanted.  Now with graduating, we have lost that freedom and social acceptance to just do what we wanted when we wanted.

I'm sure some of us had our futures planned out, I know I did.  I always wanted to be a teacher.  But I did not plan that when I graduated it would be in an economy still recovering from the recession of 2008 and an economy where teaching was one of the most difficult careers to enter.  It's an earth-shattering revelation that what we expected for ourselves is now seemingly unattainable.  How do you become a teacher when there are no openings?  When there are already substitute teachers who have been subbing for 7+ years with no luck?  And teaching is only one of the many careers that are feeling the heat right now.  There is an overabundance of us graduates, but comparatively few 'dream' positions.

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Perhaps the scariest part of graduating is that come Fall is the time when payments for our student loans start being due.  So on top of dim job prospects we are expected to pay back thousands of dollars we were forced to take out for our over-priced college education.  I think anyone in this situation would be 'blue.'

Now that does look like a bleak picture indeed.  And it's very clear why so many graduates dread the idea of graduating.  But it's important to look back at those past four years of our life in college and look at what we achieved, at what we learned, and at what we struggled through.  Personally, I'm sure glad I don't have to write another senior thesis on the history of the Crusades or have to deal with freshman roommate horror stories.  No more gen. ed. classes that you were never interested in, no more gross dining hall food, no more walking 5+ minutes to wherever your car is parked in the middle of a brutal New England winter, no more all nighters studying for something you clearly will not remember nor care about.

To graduate, we gave up a lot of these struggles to take on a whole new set.  But now we know that we can do it, that we can survive and thrive.  We learned we can solve problems on our own, we can move away from home, we can be independent, and so many things more important than what is taught in a classroom.

Graduating shouldn't be about what we lost, but the experience we have gained.  And how we apply this experience and knowledge to the rest of our lives.  That is what really comes after graduating, life.  It may be the unknown and it may be unsure, but that is what is really on the other side of that stage.  But I think that deep inside we all know that despite our initials 'blues' and our initial fear, the best is yet to come.

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