The time has come. I am taking the final classes in my degree plan, and I am preparing to graduate this upcoming spring semester. To tell you the truth, it feels different then what I was expecting. I remember the eagerness I had when confronted with the thought of graduating high school, but that's not there this time around. I know that there are some key differences, but I was anticipating a lot more lead up.

I started college in 2013, and I got to it fairly easily, at least compared to high school. Things just made a lot more sense, and it felt like I was actually working towards something. Though I am a fairly introverted person, the independence of college forced me out of my shell and I became louder and more involved. College has truly allowed me to grow more than I did in the four years of high school. So as I prepare to go out, I know it is necessary, and it is part of what made college so great, preparing for this future that I am about to enter, but that excitement is just not there. I could point to the promise of debt and depression of not getting the jobs that I was picturing when I chose my major, that the degree I spent all of this time and money on won't be worth much once I leave, or that I have lived out what many call the easiest and sometimes best parts of their lives, but truly I don't think those play into it (at least that much.) Yeah, I'm sure I will look back at these times with fondness and probably reminisce about the "better times," but I think it is the unknown which has me hesitant.

I know that typically includes the things I mentioned before, the possibilities of not having a job, not using my degree, or just being unhappy, but I think it is much more than that. I am not to concerned with where the path will lead me, but rather taking that step into the unknown. I think that is part of what this graduation in particular means for me. I'm worried it won't be in the direction I wanted to go, or it may mean that I will need to stop dreaming, which is a big part of who I am. At high school graduation people want to hear what you are going to do, but at college they already know and can be more critical, I know because I have been there. At college graduation there is an anxiety of "is this degree going to provide for me" and then that starts to extend to all of your friends. So perhaps that is it, this anxiety that surrounds college graduation, that when we step into the unknown there will be nothing there to stand on.