Change is hard. You'd think I was used to it at this point in my life after going to four different high schools and moving half way across the country (and back) but it is still so hard to handle at times.
Change is coming quickly for many college students with the start of the spring 2017 semester. College is, essentially, about change. The semesters go by quickly and with them numerous relationships, friendships, and classes. What you think one day is completely and totally true can change the next day. The biggest change of all, though, is preparing for when college ends. So many college students (myself included) have known nothing but school for practically our entire lives. Some of us will be going on to even more school and are in the midst of grad school applications or figuring out which law or med school to attend, and that's scary. The prospect of graduating without any real idea of what comes next is scary. The reality of life - that it's ever changing and evolving and moving - is scary.
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This past week I have become rather overwhelmed with what the future holds. On December 31st, the world said goodbye to 2016 and hello to 2017. This year is the year that I'll graduate and it's the year everything is going to change. The reality that in a few short months the life I knew for the past four years while I was in school is going to be behind me and something else is going to loom before me is finally starting to sink in. I'm ecstatic to be finishing up my undergraduate degree and I'm looking forward to seeing where I will go from here, but it's hard to be at peace with it all since it hasn't happened yet.
I think that's the hard part about change - the not knowing what's on the other side of the metaphorical mountain that's about to be climbed. I'm prepared to traverse my last semester of college, but the fact is that I don't know if I'm gong to get into any of the grad schools I've applied to or if I'm going to end up staying local and working at a nine to five job. Even if I do get into a grad school, I don't know what that will entail. In a year's time I could be teaching freshmen college students rhetoric and composition, or I could be sitting at a desk answering phones all day. The unknown is what makes change so unnerving.
So, as we all enter into a new semester and the change that comes with it, I think it's important to remember that change is a good thing. Without change, there wouldn't be progress. Without progress, nothing good can happen. The reality of life is that it is constantly changing and the reality of that change is that we would be nowhere without it. So although change is scary and I feel at times like I'm floating around with no way of knowing what's up or down, I'm learning to finally embrace change. The scary unknown ahead could actually be the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and I'll never find out unless I traverse the looming cliffs to get there
