The days after you toss your cap

Four years ago, I could not wait to get out of the small suburb of Fishers, IN and start my new life at Mizzou. Two days ago, that journey came to an end and I’ve been trying to find the right words to help explain how I’m feeling, but I am honestly not sure they exist.

For the most part, things have always come easy for me. High school wasn’t ridiculously hard, I did pretty well, the only real failure I remember is not making the volleyball team sophomore year (which was actually a blessing in disguise because I discovered journalism), but besides that, I was afforded awesome opportunities.

College was a different ball game, there were so many people and everyone wanted to be friends for stupid reasons. It felt like summer camp all over again (I hated summer camp– bugs, outdoors, box lunches, not for me). I felt like I had to sell myself to my floor-mates on why I should be invited to sit with them at lunch and I’m not too much here for cliques.

To say the least, I went through a lot of friends my first two years at Mizzou, but the really great ones stayed and put up with my dramatic, crazy life (but seriously). College was the first time I experienced multiple difficulties. I was depressed, I got my heart broken and I was not doing so hot in school.

But here I am on the other side of it, shocked. I’m shocked I graduated in four years, I’m shocked I was able to stretch myself so thin and most of all I’m shocked I don’t have a job yet.

You always see pictures from graduation day of the happy alums and their perfectly decorated caps (like the pictures below) but few graduates ever share what’s going through their minds during the ceremony and at the time they walk across the stage. Fear, excitement, plans to drink copious amounts of alcohol once it’s all over. The thing I was worried about most at the time: tripping and falling on stage.

But now I’m two days removed from the ceremony and celebrations and I just feel…weird and sort of like a loser. I have no real summer plans, I’ve spent most of my day staring at my email and phone waiting for a interview or job offer to come through. I feel desperate.

Graduation comes and goes, just like any other day. But for me it has aways been painted as my golden ticket to life and while I consider my degree a ticket to some awesome future experiences, the idea that they happen immediately after graduation is false.

I don’t have the slightest idea what the summer holds for me and that’s very scary, but I am determined to start those projects I never started and finish others, I will take control of my health and I will pray without ceasing because I know my opportunity is out there and I know my time is coming. And for those of you who are recent grads in similar positions, I challenge you to do the same. Lean on family and friends, trust God, it’ll all work out.

And to the class of 2015, congratulations, we made it!

What am I doing?

Tuesday night around 10 p.m. I turned in my final paper, which meant I was officially done with junior year. After a sigh of relief and an hour or two of catching up on TV shows I’d missed, an unsettling feeling came over me. 

I’m a senior. I’m a senior in college. A moment I have been waiting for since I went to freshman orientation as a senior in high school, but now it’s here and I don’t even know what to do with it. 

Of course I want to live it up, go out with friends (I did just turn 21 after all) lose my voice at football games, find the craziest outfit to wear for Halloween and just celebrate, but that also means I have to start getting realistic about life after college.

After my first semester at Mizzou I said there was no way I would consider graduate school, or law school or anything similar, but after spending a bit more time here, looking at the field I want to go into and seeing who’s where I want to be and what they did to get there, I’m realizing grad school, might be inevitable, which is fine, but then that brings up the questions of, where? 

How do I even begin looking for grad schools or jobs for that matter? I’ll admit I’ve been on LinkedIn a lot more this semester than ever before and I’m proud of my ability to continuously update it, but what if that isn’t enough to get me a job?

I spent my 5 week long winter break apply for internships, a little over 30 internships and I maybe got a response or an interview for half of them, and of that I got offers from just about all of them, which is promising I guess (if you’re wondering, I decided to be a brand ambassador for Dell and Mosaic). But here I am, on my bedroom floor in my parents house wondering what’s next, wondering if what I have done the past three years is enough to get me a job or into graduate school. 

The reality is, out of all of my senior friends graduating, one of them has a job, one of them has a plan, the rest of them are spending their summer in Columbia like me. That terrifies me. I don’t want that for myself, I don’t even want that for them. They’re too talented. Unfortunately (and I’ve found that people in comfortable well paying jobs don’t like hearing this) that’s the reality of a graduating senior in the world today.

Then there are my friends who took a different route. Who decided to enter the military or take classes at a local college and work to save up money. Those friends, specifically my best friend, is getting married in two months. Oh yeah and I’m a bridesmaid. I never thought at 21 she’d be getting married and I’d be standing right beside her in support, I mean it’s crazy right? It makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong.

Now when I run into classmates from high school who stayed behind in Fishers they are married, or engaged or pregnant and when they ask what I’ve been doing, my mind goes blank and I choke out a “Oh you know classes, work, looking for an internship haha one more year!” It sounds normal, it sounds like I’m doing fine and if I’d just sit down and breathe, I’d realize that I totally am. I just finished an amazing semester, I’m VP of an organization on campus, co-founder of another, I had an amazing internship where I learned a lot and I’m working for Dell this summer! Those are all pretty awesome, but for some reason I feel that they won’t be enough, which makes me think, what am I doing? 

I guess this post wasn’t meant to have a resolution at the end. This isn’t a 30 minute sitcom on TBS or ABC Family where all the issues are resolved until the following weeks episode. This is my life and I’m hoping the question of what I’m doing will be revealed to me as the next year unfolds.