So far this year I have found that introducing myself as a senior often prompts the question, “So what are you doing with your life after graduation?” 

When you don’t know the answer to this question, you get tired of dishing out the same vague, “still feeling it out” or, “we’ll see where the wind takes me.” The idea of graduation still seems distant and unreal. 

Recently, I sat down and really thought about the imminence of graduating college and starting a new life chapter. This is both exciting and terrifying, but mainly it’s just downright frustrating. We just started a whole new chapter four years earlier when we came to college. I created my new college persona, acquired a shiny new set of friends, thought about my life in new ways, and moved beyond my comfort zone. And now you’re telling me I have to do that all over again? 

College is such a tease. Four years surrounded by people your age with similar goals and interests and then suddenly we are told to disperse. Yes, it is scary that I have to go find a job and a purpose in life, but I can control that. I can’t control where everyone else goes or how life will remold around their absence. So I want to know, where does everybody go?  

I turned to a somewhat outdated TCU alumni report surveying those graduated between 2005 and 2008. Of those surveyed, 21% went on to graduate school and 63% straight into full-time employment, with half of those being employed at places “highly related” to their majors.  

According to the report, the top three employers for respondents were Texas Health Resources, Fort Worth ISD, and TCU itself (or perhaps these folks were just more likely to respond to a TCU survey). The top three graduate programs enrolled in were TCU, University of TX at Arlington, and University of TX at Dallas. These results make it look like people didn’t wander too far.  

It’s interesting data, though I’m unsure exactly how I feel about the results. Fort Worth is an awesome city and I could certainly stand to hang around it a bit longer. On the other hand, is graduation more of a cut-and-run opportunity? Is this the time to pack up and go all out with your next “new chapter” and not subject yourself to driving by campus for the next six years uttering “remember whens” that will only grow fuzzier?  

Regardless of the control that I do and do not have on post-collegiate happenings, I'm interested to see where everyone ends up. Who picks up and moves to Illinois together and who just makes the cut on your Christmas card (er..Christmas Snapchat) list?  

Now, when I picture graduation I just see Boschini with a boom box raised high overhead blasting “Closing time.”  

“You don’t have to go home, grads, but you can’t stay here.”