Keep Calm and Carry on: Dealing with the G-Word

Question

Help! I cannot believe the dreaded day of graduation is almost here. I can’t help but feel devastated when I think about graduating. Everyone says college is the best four years of your life, and I am not ready to be done.
I am worried about my future, staying in contact with my friends, living in a different city and finding a job. Do you have any pointers on how to look forward without so much fear?

Answer

Believe me, my roommates and I won’t let anyone utter the g-word, “graduation,” without feeling our stomachs tighten and our faces pout.

Of course, no one gets excited for an incredible chapter to end, but all graduating Hoosiers must find a way to turn the anxiety into excitement. As graduation draws near, we must remember how lucky we are to have had an experience that leaves us wanting more, to have the education we have obtained and the technology that will allow us to keep up with our community from the past four years.

Make sure to spend the next few weeks living it up. Eat at the places you enjoy, hang out at your favorite campus spots, take springtime strolls with the friends you love catching up with and recognize the things you learned to love about our campus over the past four years. Don’t forget that even though time is scarce, there is still time. Here are some things every graduate needs to know as we welcome May.

1. By the way, congratulations: A little more 30 percent of Americans have a bachelor’s degree — you have earned something to be very, very proud of. While it may seem as though jobs are low and opportunities are limited, don’t forget that being a college graduate makes you one of the lucky ones. You have educated yourself, had a wonderful experience and are ready to take on the challenge everyone else faces of finding a fit for the years to come.
It may be scary being unsure of what happens next, but don’t forget you have accomplished something great and are headed in the right direction. Don’t forget to be confident that if you survived the last four years, you can cope with what is yet to come.

2. A familiar feeling: Remember how it felt first coming to IU? Afraid you were leaving all your friends at home, worried about having a roommate, being far from your family and leaving everything you knew? Well, look how that worked out! Life is full of chapters beginning and ending, and we have to keep going by welcoming the next steps in our paths with courage and excitement. Remind yourself that if the past four years were so wonderful, the next ones could be even better.

3. Uncertainty? You are not alone: Don’t know what you want to do with your life? Look around you. Students, professors, even the kid that says he knew he wanted to be a doctor since the first grade is uncertain of what is coming next.
Even if your friends have jobs, it doesn’t mean they are guaranteed to be “OK” forever. Everyone is stepping into something new, and even those who seem certain will have to deal with transition periods of finding work, finding new passions and dealing with life’s little flukes that change up our plans when we least expect it.
Don’t spend your last few weeks in college worrying about the next step. Be active in the job search, but when the time comes, you will have a place to be as long as you stay motivated and pursue what excites you. A good friend of mine always says, “I spent a lifetime worrying about the things I never saw coming.” Don’t waste the worry when the future will bring whatever is in store.

4. Love that laptop: During a discussion with my parents, I was shocked to find out they hardly kept in touch with anyone after college. Their only options were letters and long-distance phone calls, and in order to stay in touch, they had to be incredibly invested in making the effort.
How lucky are we to have Facebook, group texting and social networks that hook us up with the people in our area? Be glad that staying in contact is so easy and your friends are a text message away. Of course it is scary acknowledging we won’t be around the same people next year, but it is all a part of life.
It’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and being even more grateful for the experiences you had at IU isn’t such a bad thing.

­— espitzer@indiana.edu