2008 Woodie Awards
Life after college
By: Jye Shafer
Issue date: 6/13/08 Section: Opinion
I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but if everything goes well I'll be graduating from Clemson in a little more than a month's time. I'm excited, of course. My family is coming to town and there will be a party and all that jazz. It should be a blast. And after that, school will be out for the summer and my time as an undergraduate student will draw to a close. I always expected this time to come and I even spent some time thinking about what it would feel like when it finally did come around - I didn't do a very good job trying to imagine it.
About a month ago it really hit me: I really didn't have a very good idea of what I was going to do next. I know it sounds cliché and everyone says it - I've certainly said those very words before - but I never understood quite what it meant.
I knew about my plans for the summer, but after that things got a little less certain, and with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, most people are either thinking about going to graduate or law school, and neither of those sounded particularly good to me, at least not right away.
I had a serious case of cold feet. Let's face it: college is a good place to be - our parents are still footing most of the serious bills and, we have a reasonable amount of free time. I wasn't ready to leave. I'm still not really ready.
But then I had a change of heart. I started thinking about why I was so worried about leaving and about not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I have discovered that there are two reasons. The first reason I was worried about leaving was losing the ability to use what I have come to call the "college excuse." The concept of the college excuse can be understood best through an example with which I'm sure almost all of you can identify - imagine you've gone home for Winter Break and you go to a nice seasonal party with your parents and their friends. Of course, all of your parents' friends want to ask you about what you're doing with your life and what you're planning to do next. The response, or the excuse, as I've dubbed it, is easy enough, so long as you're in college. You simply say, "Well, I'm still in school and then after that I'll probably head to grad school or something." This is almost always satisfying to the interrogator - "Oh, good. That sounds good," they'll usually say.
About a month ago it really hit me: I really didn't have a very good idea of what I was going to do next. I know it sounds cliché and everyone says it - I've certainly said those very words before - but I never understood quite what it meant.
I knew about my plans for the summer, but after that things got a little less certain, and with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, most people are either thinking about going to graduate or law school, and neither of those sounded particularly good to me, at least not right away.
I had a serious case of cold feet. Let's face it: college is a good place to be - our parents are still footing most of the serious bills and, we have a reasonable amount of free time. I wasn't ready to leave. I'm still not really ready.
But then I had a change of heart. I started thinking about why I was so worried about leaving and about not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I have discovered that there are two reasons. The first reason I was worried about leaving was losing the ability to use what I have come to call the "college excuse." The concept of the college excuse can be understood best through an example with which I'm sure almost all of you can identify - imagine you've gone home for Winter Break and you go to a nice seasonal party with your parents and their friends. Of course, all of your parents' friends want to ask you about what you're doing with your life and what you're planning to do next. The response, or the excuse, as I've dubbed it, is easy enough, so long as you're in college. You simply say, "Well, I'm still in school and then after that I'll probably head to grad school or something." This is almost always satisfying to the interrogator - "Oh, good. That sounds good," they'll usually say.
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