The start of this fall semester begins the first of the lasts for the class of 2013. Even though it has only been one month, plenty of lasts have already happened, including the first last day of school for the fall semester.
No matter how many years of school a person has under his or her belt, the first day of a new semester still brings jitters. The excitement of a fresh start, with new classrooms, teachers and students, still leaves me tossing and turning as I try to fall asleep the night before.
Even though I have had class in Turlington several times, I still worry about not finding the correct room and being late. Who wants to be the person to sit down in a class, get the syllabus and then realize they are in the wrong room?
Questions of whether the class will be hard, if the book actually needs to be purchased and what friends will end up in the same class all race through my mind before I even walk through the door.
To think teachers will turn into bosses and peers will be co-workers in just a few months is a strange feeling because I still feel like a student. It is hard to imagine working in an office when classrooms feel like the workplace. Seniors are stuck in an awkward period of time. It is a transition from still being a kid to being an actual adult.
There is a need to still be a college student, but also the demand of actually figuring out the next step in life. There is a tango back and forth between being a student with only having the responsibility of passing classes and going to Midtown, and realizing real life begins in a just a few months.
With the job market still low and unemployment high, students are encouraged to stay in school as long as possible hoping for change with time. These students know what their goal in life is as they sit in the library preparing for the LSAT or GRE.
The rest of the senior class, myself included, have been balancing attending class and fixing up our resumes for upcoming career showcases. Our futures are uncertain.
No one tells you when the appropriate time to seek jobs and interviews is. While there is a Career Resource Center, it is not as personal as having a high school guidance counselor. There are no bulletins warning of approaching deadlines because there is no timeframe for getting a job. This makes graduation a scary deadline on a calendar for me because I don’t even know where to begin in my search. As a journalism major, positions exist across the nation from large cities to small suburban towns. I haven’t figured out whom I would want to work for or where, and the clock is ticking.
As time passes, the first month has been full of nights out with my friends and days in the library preparing for the future. The many lasts of college have started and will continue as the year unfolds.
