The year 2016 has been a wild ride. From graduating college with a Bachelor’s degree, to working my first job, to voting for the first time in a presidential election, I can say that I feel I have grown a lot over the year. What I have done this year thus far is unlike anything I have done in the years before that.

Now is the time when I am really thinking about what I see myself doing for the rest of my life. Six months from now, I will be reaching the age when I have lived a quarter of a century. Despite the way I look, and have short height indicating that I might be between the age of 12 and 16, I will be 25 in May.

When I graduated, I was already thinking that I wanted to go on to graduate school and obtain a Master’s degree in social work. In the time of writing my research proposal for what was going to end up being a thesis paper for sociology, my field of interest lied in people with disabilities and education. If it is possible, I would also want to work with families. Social work is an option I am deeply considering, as I could see myself helping and finding relations with others.

When I was growing up, I never really had any experience of interacting with other people with disabilities. Despite the fact that I had friends who are deaf/hard of hearing and wore cochlear implants, I live in an able-bodied world. Being a social worker and interacting with people, who may or may not have a disability, would allow me to obtain the skills I never really had. Even if I am working as a billing assistant for my sister’s private practice as a nurse practitioner of psychiatry, I am getting the skills interacting with the patients that comes in every day.

I have a busy schedule now, and I get tired easily. I plan on a daily basis and if I do not do any planning, I get frazzled and anxious about everything I have to do. Even though I feel strongly about wanting to attend graduate school and living independently, I have not gotten around to putting my plans on paper yet. Between physical therapy, work, therapy, and being a contributing editor, I have to think about starting my applications, asking for letters of recommendation, and making a backup plan, just in case. I still have time in 2016 to do what I have to do, but I will have to be committed to my goals in 2017.

Life after graduation will definitely be difficult in deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life. When you do something, you will actually be working and earning experience toward your future goals. If you write down what you want to be doing in the next couple of years, you will be committing yourself to achieve everything. It’s not going to be easy, but it definitely will be worth it in the end.