College. The place where you will be spending the next four(ish) years of your life.

Four years. In four short years you are supposed to have your entire life figured out and set up before you like a line of dominos just waiting for that first push. In four years you are supposed to be complete as an individual – at least, that is what I thought two years ago.

Personally, I came into my freshman year with a line of dominos already set before me. I knew what I wanted to major in and what I wanted to do with it, I had a girlfriend who I thought I could end up marrying, and I honestly just thought I had a solid grip on how my upcoming life would turn out. Everything seemed primed for me, and I just had to keep those dominos falling to create this life that I had envisioned.

Boy was I wrong. Flash forward to the present and you will see that I have a completely different major, that girlfriend and I have gone our separate ways, and I have no earthly idea what I am doing with my future. Two years ago I at least had a semblance of a life laid out before me, and now I cannot even lay claim to that.

Being completely honest, that is terrifying. I would be lying if I told you it were not, but it is also freeing. I am now free to figure out what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I am free to be led to a path that I could not hope of envisioning before.

That freedom is absolutely exhilarating, and it is something all of you are about to have. If your upbringing was anything like mine, then before now you have not truly had opportunities to plan out your life and make impactful decisions about those plans. You did not choose what to study. You often did not choose when or what you ate. You did not even entirely choose when you slept and when you got to go out and do something with your friends. That is all about to change.

In a few short months you will have nobody telling you what to do on a daily basis. You will be making daily, weekly, and lifelong plans with no one telling you what you have to do. Sure, you may feel like you are going along with whatever plans your new friends make, and you may seek guidance from your parents or a professor for major decisions, but ultimately everything you do from now on is your decision.

However, it is imperative that you scratch down those plans in pencil rather than etch them in stone. It is important for you to be flexible in both the short and long term to ensure that you do not let opportunities pass you by. These opportunities can range from a night out with your friends to something that could lead to a truly fulfilling life. You should never get so caught up in your plans you have made that you miss out on something.

To make a long story short, I hope that all of you in the class of 2020 can be flexible with the choices and life plans that you make in college. No matter what you end up choosing to do on a day-to-day, week-to-week, or year-to-year basis your life will turn out wonderfully if you allow it to. So be flexible, figure out where you are being pointed towards, and never take an opportunity for granted.