The Hill (Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)
This piece is from the CU Independent’s opinion section. Any opinions or views do not represent the CU Independent.
There’s a haunting phrase you have heard 100 times that you’ll be saying in less than a year: “Enjoy college; it’s the best years of your life.”
Isn’t that just perfect—because according to that, I only have one “best year” left? Feels pretty high stakes, huh? I have been twiddling my thumbs at my unpaid internship, thinking about how I should approach this backwards time—is this still summer break, or is this the prelude to the post-grad panic?
Taco Junky is shut down. I no longer have GenEds to take in Duane Physics. What is this place? There’s a looming feeling over the land—I’m being dramatic, but you don’t have to be a weatherman to know the wind blows weirdly across Boulder in the summer. It’s enjoyable in its own nature, but the comfort of what once was looms in uncertainty for what’s to come. Everything looks different when there aren’t 100 frat boys running around shirtless or in matching sweat sets in 70-degree heat.
As I approach senior year, the main thing on my mind is just how different things have become and how far I have traveled to be in the spot that I am. The last three summers, I have been a bartender and server at a country club in my suburban town. Apparently, after that three-year mark, you’re supposed to put on the big girl pants and become an intern or get experience in something you hope to be in a year from now. Makes sense, right? I want to know why there are two extremities in the workplace: a) ignore the intern, we have bigger fish to fry, and b) give it to the intern, but of course don’t explain how to do any of it. I am convinced this is how it works—all of my friends across different fields all have the same experience. Maybe that’s the gist: plunge the interns into the workforce. Alright, cool, I guess.
Outside the confusion and discomfort, I think it may be wiser to start thinking about what I want the next year to look like. Sometimes, I, like many people my age, forget in a way that we have some agency over this time. It’s not like life just happens to us—I mean, it does if you let it, but why do that, right? So if you want to make a new friend, do it. If you want to climb all the fourteeners in the state, do it. If you want to try a new club, do it. If you want to make it to class, do it. If you just want to get through the next year and enjoy it, do it—or don’t; it’s your choice.
After sitting here and debating what feels like a quarter-life crisis, I feel very lucky to love a place so much that I feel this emotional about leaving it. Honestly, I don’t have the algorithm or the answer to outrun worry, but I do know that neither of us is making any progress by stressing about the trajectory of the next 12 months, nor can we probably imagine it. I would argue that the unknown is quite possibly the best part. I am still writing this from my patio couch outside my brick house covered in chalk. I can still walk downstairs to see my best friends. I still have a year to learn.
Contact CU Independent Writer Sydney Schrader at sydney.schrader@colorado.edu
