I’m graduating from college on May 23, 2017. If I told you that it didn’t scare me, I would be telling you one of the biggest lies of my entire life. I tell myself that I’m fine and that I know what I’m doing, but usually, that’s just me trying to comfort myself; I think that’s something that we all do. I’m actually terrified to graduate from college.
I’m scared because:
I fear that I might have made the wrong choice as to which degree I’ve pursued over the course of the past four years.
And I’m nervous for the “real world.” What is it anyways and when does it officially start? I have no sense of what to expect.
Our lives have already been outlined for us
We live in a society where we’re essentially given an outline as to how our lives are supposed to be; you go to high school, continue to higher education, graduate, move out of our parents’ place, get a job, get married, have kids and grow old. I’m on that path, and knowing that I’m caving into what society has told me I should be doing, at times, makes me sick to my stomach. I want to live an extraordinary life, not just an ordinary one.
Society is at a low
I’m terrified to graduate because of the state of our society. It’s flawed, it’s divided — some might even say it’s at a low point. There’s hate, combatted by activism that slowly makes small bursts of change, which in turn seems to increase the hate against one another. With a new degree in tow, I want to bring positive change. I’ve been given the right tools — I’ve earned them! But I fear that all of my efforts, and my peers efforts, will get pushed down and wasted, and that’s not the “real world” I want to graduate into.
I cannot fail
I think the most terrifying part about graduating is potentially losing everything that I’ve worked towards. What if I put my best efforts forward, everything that’s in me, into something I truly believe in, and have it backfire? What if I become an inconvenience to the world?
Everyone around me appears to have their lives together, but I’m still figuring it out. And I’m pretty sure, despite how calm on the outside I might appear to be about life post-grad, I’m becoming more anxious about it on a daily basis. I have a habit of beating myself up whenever I fail — I cannot fail. It’s one thing to master being a student, going to class and getting A’s — I’ve been doing it for at least 15 years. But mastering the art of life; this real world? This is why I’m terrified to graduate.