Posts Tagged 'Graduation'
August 15, 2007
With all the hype that I myself piled on my impending graduation, and all that I had to say about it in the months leading up to it, now that it’s passed, I’m at a loss for words.
“How does it feel to be a graduate?” they ask me. “Uhh…” “Umm….” or “Well…” are my usual responses. It doesn’t really feel all that different at all. It’s a nice relief to have it done and behind me, but since I was only taking one Summer class leading up to graduation, it’s really not all that different right now. Come mid-September, that will probably change.
In the meantime, though, I’m just kind of living life the same as I have been for some time now. It is nice to not have another semester looming over my head. Though the future is getting foggier and hazier. My main goal for so long has been to finally finish school, so now that school’s over, my goals and plans are becoming more insubstantial and indefinable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. It just means that I’ll need to be more intentional in my day-to-day efforts in being productive and moving forward with life.
It’s easy to just keep signing up for classes, working through a previously structured degree program. It’s not so easy afterwards to really work towards a higher goal. Or, as in my case, to figure out what that higher goal actually is. Oh well. I’ve got time to figure it out, I guess. I just don’t want to stay in this state of limbo for very long. It’s kind of disconcerting.
I feel kind of like how Inigo Montoya must have felt after he killed Count Rugen in the Princess Bride.
Maybe I should consider piracy.
Posted in Personal | Graduation | Growing Up | Indecision | Life Decisions | Post-College | Princess Bride
July 26, 2007
Last night I had my last day of school. Ever. Well, unless I decide to go back for a Master’s Degree sometime in the future (unlikely). But, for the purposes of this post, it was my last day of school. Ever.
I was actually in class for less than twenty minutes, because all we had to do was take a 36-question multiple choice test. As I finally filled in the last of the thousands of answer bubbles I’ve filled during my college career, I sat there in the classroom in quiet reflection. The back of the room was lit while the front set of lights were switched off, and with the fading sunlight seeping in through the half-open blinds on the windows, the room had a soft, relaxing atmosphere. Though I was done with my test, I figured that since it was likely the last time that I would sit in a college classroom as a student, I shouldn’t be in a huge rush to leave. And since I’m possibly one of the most sentimental people to ever walk our great Earth, I wanted to kind of savor my final moments of college. So, there I sat, thinking back over my college career, and it’s slow progression over the past six years.
And then I left. Though I’ve not technically graduated yet, college is pretty much behind me.
This means I get a raise, right? …right? …hello?
Posted in Personal | College | Completion | Finality | Graduation | Nostalgia | Savoring | Sunsets | Tests
April 26, 2007
One more semester under my belt. One more to go.
Lord willing, I’ll be a college graduate two days before I turn 24.
Knock on wood.
Posted in Personal | College | Completion | Graduation
December 4, 2006
Well, today was my final final for this semester. And while I wasn’t exactly dying for the semester to end, it’s always a nice feeling. There’s a soothing sense of finality that accompanies turning in that last final. It’s not everyday that you wrap up 3 months worth of work in the span of an hour.
It’s weird to sit here on my bed, or rather the mattress sitting on the floor of my new room, ’cause I haven’t bought a bed yet, and not have something else that I should be doing. I have that same nagging voice as always that’s telling me that there’s schoolwork to be done. Only, now there isn’t. That voice is a liar. Not that I ever paid attention to it, even when there was work to be done.
It just makes me wonder how long it will take me to transition out of that school-time mode once-and-for-all when I finally graduate. I’ve been in school with little break since was barely 5. That’s 80% of my life, and like 90% of the life I can actually remember. So, I imagine it will be no quick switch. I’ll probably wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, stressing over finals for a year or two after I graduate. I guess I’ll find out soon enough, eh?
Well, all that long rambling to say, another semester under my belt.
16 down, 1 to go.
Posted in Personal | College | Finals | Graduation | Transition
November 13, 2006
College graduation. Theoretically, it is supposed to happen four years after high school graduation. As it turns out, that is rarely the case anymore, as more and more people are taking 5 years to graduate. For me, it will have taken 6 years and then some. Then, of course, there were the 3 years that I took college classes while I was in High School. So, with only one semester taken off the second half of my Senior year in High School, and another that I dropped my two classes half-way through, I will have been in college for nine years before I get my Bachelor’s (read: 4-year) degree.
I graduated High School in 2001 and began (continued?) my college education with the vague intention of pursuing a Meteorology Degree. Having finished all of my college math, computer, and foreign language classes by the time I got out of High School, I hoped to be able to graduate in under four years. Ahh… the naivety of youthful fantasy. Had that grandiose idea panned out, I would have been out of college by May 2005; a year and a half ago. But, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Due to a few problems during those first couple of years, such as taking (and acing) the wrong Chemistry class and having to take Chemistry again (twice, for a total of three times) and taking a couple of other classes that I didn’t even need to take to get a Meteorology Degree, I ended up ready to transfer to a University not at all early, but right on time after May 2003, two years after High School.
I looked at A&M and OU, as both have excellent Meteorology departments, and decided that I liked OU better. So, Mom and I went up there and I got enrolled, and even registered for classes. But, for reasons that I honestly still don’t really understand, I decided not to go for a Meteorology degree. Part of it was that it looked like a lot more work than I had thought, part of it was that the more I thought about it, the Meteorologist lifestyle didn’t appeal to me as much, part of it was that I was scared to set out on my own like that, part of it was that I thought I felt God leading me somewhere else. But, all that to say, I decided against Meteorology and decided on Music. So, in the Fall of 2003, back to CCCC I went. I started taking some music classes and finished off my Associate’s (read: 2 year) degree. Halfway through the second semester of music classes, I decided against a music degree. I love music, but music classes were sucking the fun out of it, and it was becoming more of a “task” than something that I enjoyed.
At this point, I’m getting really, really sick of school, and I just want to graduate. Ironically, this was two and a half years ago. So, I decide, “Hey, why don’t I just get a business degree and figure out what I want to be when I grow up after I graduate.” And besides, I know hardly any college graduates that are actually working in their field. A Criminal Justice grad that’s a Software Engineer (my dad), an English major that sells computer components and is about to start video game design (my friend Calvin), a photography major who designs accounting software, a Biblical major who manages his own IT business.
So, to UTD I go. It’s local so I don’t have to move. It’s cheap, so I won’t have to pay off loans for years after graduation. It’s got a respected business school. Let’s do it. I enroll, register, and take a semester’s worth of classes, and realize that there’s still a few Sophomore-level classes that I need for my business degree that CCCC offers, so in the Spring of 2005, I’m back at CCCC full-time. The next semester, Fall 2005, I’m half at CCCC and half at UTD. For the record, that was my final semester at CCCC, and marked my thirteenth (that’s 13th) semester there. That’s six and a half years, by the way.
That was this time last year, and I was on track to graduate this December. Then, I decided to not take Summer classes and work instead, and that pushed graduation back to May ’07. Now, it looks like I’ll be working full-time in the Spring, so a couple of days ago, I registered for 3 night classes, and I’ll take my last class this Summer. So now, Lord willing, this June, over six years after I graduated from High School, with 152 credit hours under my belt, I’ll finally get that blasted bachelor’s degree.
I’ll believe it when I have it in my grubby, over-educated hands.
Posted in Personal | College | Education | Graduation | High School | Indecision
