Dear Seniors,

Well, the time has almost come. Spring Break has come and gone and now it’s about the middle of March. There are literally eight weeks left until the fateful day when we all walk onto the stage to receive our diplomas. And it’s absolutely insane. To think four years of college have completely flown by.

When we all started college, whether it was four or six years ago, and the people around us told us it would fly by, they were right! Another four years of education has passed us by and whether some of you are planning on going to graduate school next fall or in a couple of years, we have completed our education. Once we receive those diplomas, we will have officially been kicked out of the education system and we will be staring our futures in the face.

It can be frightening. It can be terrifying thinking about the fact that we will be officially done with school and we’ll be starting our lives. But it’s also incredibly exciting. To think that we will no longer have to sit in a classroom just learning about what our future careers are going to be like is exciting. To think we’ll actually be living out our careers is thrilling!

We won’t be dreaming anymore about what it will be like to be teachers, doctors, nurses, actors/actresses, musicians, accountants, marketers, advertisers, writers, publicists, or whatever we’ve chosen to do for the rest of our lives. We’ll actually be doing it. We’ll finally be able to apply to internships or even real jobs saying that, yes, I have graduated college and I do have a Bachelors degree!

We’ll finally be able to work full-time in our career of choice, hopefully, without having to rush to a second, part-time job. We’ll finally be doing exactly what we’ve always wanted to do our entire lives.

It can be exciting and scary, but it can also be hard. Most of us have made friends who will last us a lifetime. We’ve met people who share the same dream and will be moving towards it or we’ve met people who we’ll have to leave behind after we get that diploma.

Most of us have met incredible professors who have gone above and beyond what it means to be a professor. Professors who have helped us pass that class or apply for graduation or graduate school or who have helped us struggling English majors when we have writer’s block or who have just been there to give us advice that will last a lifetime. And even though we will be separated from those amazing friends or those wonderful professors, we know they’ll still be there for us.

But we also have to remember our time isn’t up yet. Though eight weeks doesn’t seem like a long time, we still have eight weeks before we graduate. And in that time, we still have papers, manuscripts, portfolios, presentations, or exams to finish. We still have to finish out our education with a bang, not a fizzle.

So even though senioritis might be settling in, we have to fight the urge to rewatch our favorite Netflix shows instead of doing homework. We have to fight the urge to just throw together something half-assed because we procrastinated so much.

We might still be graduating no matter what, but we can’t slow down. When the day finally comes that we get to walk across that stage and get that diploma, we want to be able to do so feeling like we’ve earned it. We want to get that diploma in our hand and think to ourselves, Yes! After all that hard work and tireless effort, I finally got it! We don’t want any sort of regret to ruin that moment for us. We want to be able to feel like we’ve accomplished something great, because we have.

Through all the trials and tribulations, we’ve come out the other side ready to take on whatever happens to come our way. Sure, we still have a lot of learning left to do. What, did you really think that thousand dollar school was going to teach you everything? Of course not! You’ll still be learning as you grow. The world still has plenty to teach us.

We have to remember this as we go off into the world. Our time in education might be dwindling, but that doesn’t mean we’re done learning. We’ll be going into the real world when we get that diploma and we’ll be learning more about our career. We will be offered more opportunities that will help us grow. We might be getting ready to graduate, but we will never be done learning.