The many frustrations and joys involved in graduating
Demitrius Watts
Issue date: 3/3/10 Section: Opinion
This coming May, June or even August, we seniors will see an end to all of the stress that we have endured over the past couple years.
All of the teachers who provoked us, all of the classes that have enraged us, the agony of having to wake up for an 8 a.m. class or stay in school for a 6:40 p.m. class - all of it will come to an end and our undergraduate (or graduate) college experience will be no more and everything that we have endured will at last be worth it.
However, before we close this chapter of our lives, I ask this: Have you reflected on all of the things that you have done to get to this moment?
High school graduation was only the beginning.
In college, we have our pre-requisites and core courses, the classes that all of us take and that we initially feel are a waste of time (no matter how we feel about our instructors). These frame our basic outlook on our college-class experience and our view of college. But, as time proceeds, we see how wrong we were. Then the classes start to become more difficult and time becomes harder and harder to manage and generally everything begins to build. Homework, projects, study groups, etc., begin to consume our lives.
If we are lucky enough to get a quick breath in from all this craziness, we quickly realize the price of tuition here at UDM and then the cycle begins again: homework, projects and study groups. With senior year comes graduation and all that it entails.
As much as you may be planning and preparing for this moment, it catches you by surprise. There's much that goes into this year of school beyond the classes you're taking.
There are also senior portfolios and graduation applications. These steps are crucial.
You must make sure that your college has this information or you won't graduate. All of these headaches can make a person's head spin, which leads to being burned out or having "senioritis."
After making sure you have taken the right courses and have the right number of credits, you will begin to be bombarded with the dreaded question, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" For the average student, the response over time eventually becomes, "Look, I just want to graduate."
This piece may come off sounding as if I'm against college, but I'm not. These experiences build character and prepare us for life-after.
But I leave you with these questions: After all of the stress you have put up with in your time at UDM and everything that you have endured, is it all worth it? Would you relive the same experiences? The answer is yes.
All of the teachers who provoked us, all of the classes that have enraged us, the agony of having to wake up for an 8 a.m. class or stay in school for a 6:40 p.m. class - all of it will come to an end and our undergraduate (or graduate) college experience will be no more and everything that we have endured will at last be worth it.
However, before we close this chapter of our lives, I ask this: Have you reflected on all of the things that you have done to get to this moment?
High school graduation was only the beginning.
In college, we have our pre-requisites and core courses, the classes that all of us take and that we initially feel are a waste of time (no matter how we feel about our instructors). These frame our basic outlook on our college-class experience and our view of college. But, as time proceeds, we see how wrong we were. Then the classes start to become more difficult and time becomes harder and harder to manage and generally everything begins to build. Homework, projects, study groups, etc., begin to consume our lives.
If we are lucky enough to get a quick breath in from all this craziness, we quickly realize the price of tuition here at UDM and then the cycle begins again: homework, projects and study groups. With senior year comes graduation and all that it entails.
As much as you may be planning and preparing for this moment, it catches you by surprise. There's much that goes into this year of school beyond the classes you're taking.
There are also senior portfolios and graduation applications. These steps are crucial.
You must make sure that your college has this information or you won't graduate. All of these headaches can make a person's head spin, which leads to being burned out or having "senioritis."
After making sure you have taken the right courses and have the right number of credits, you will begin to be bombarded with the dreaded question, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" For the average student, the response over time eventually becomes, "Look, I just want to graduate."
This piece may come off sounding as if I'm against college, but I'm not. These experiences build character and prepare us for life-after.
But I leave you with these questions: After all of the stress you have put up with in your time at UDM and everything that you have endured, is it all worth it? Would you relive the same experiences? The answer is yes.
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