So it has been four years since I have graduated high school... four years. With college graduation this weekend, I know that I feel very different about things then I did when I was a senior in high school.

I am a lot more optimistic about my life now that I have graduated college. When I graduated high school, I did not feel very prepared for the real world at all. I knew nothing about renting a house, filing taxes or acquiring a credit card. Now that I have been blessed with four more years of trial and error, I feel much more prepared for real life. I have been able to ask the questions I did not even know to ask as a high school graduate.

I feel more accomplished than ever now that I have finished my undergraduate degree. Graduating high school is a great achievement, but the average person is expected to finish high school. College is a whole different ballgame. When you graduate college, you become a part of a higher educated minority. I remember reading a study that said if the world's population was reduced to a village of 100 people, only one person would be college educated. It is a huge achievement to have a college degree!

After graduating college, I feel so much more confident in myself and who I am. Throughout high school, you are so young that you are extremely malleable to your surroundings and how people treat you. As you grow older, you realize how little people's opinions matter and what is important is how you treat yourself and others. The road to self-love is not over yet, but throughout my college education, I have learned that my feelings and opinions are valid.

I am definitely much more pessimistic about the world now that I have graduated college. After four years of learning human follies and terrible happenings through history, political science, and other classes, it is hard to have a positive outlook on what is happening in the world today and the future of the planet. Especially when my generation is going to inherit all of these problems that are most likely going to all come to a head in the next 50 years...but who is complaining? After high school I had just grasped the issues that we are facing today and the dark history of our specie's past.

Graduating high school and college is an amazing achievement that everyone should be proud of. If you just graduated high school, I hope you are at least considering going to college. It is an amazing experience that can not be replicated. And to the college graduates of 2016, congratulations and good luck with your future endeavors!