10
THE END IS THE BEGINNING
THE FAMILIAR RITUAL OF DEPARTURE IN EARLY fall—the journey back to campus, reentry one more time—the beginning of senior year. By now it seems so natural, this coming and going, this moving in and out of the family orbit. Students casually pack their life’s belongings into the back of a car and drive off to school. Or they hop on a bus or a plane with the confidence of those who know where they are heading.
Seniors are at the top of the heap now. They are the team captains and newspaper editors, the leaders of campus organizations, and the enlightened voices in the classroom. Though some revel in that knowledge for the entire year, most are acutely aware that their position is tenuous. At some point they are struck by the realization that “I’m a senior. This is it—the end.”
The year is filled with a series of last times: the last convocation, homecoming weekend, basketball game, fraternity rush, winter term, midterm, final. Never will life be quite so ritualized again. And the dawning of the reality that this is it brings on a flurry of “last chance” activity. There is a sense of urgency, of time running out. Some students throw themselves into a host of endeavors as they try to make the most of college opportunities. They spend precious time with their circle of friends, hang out with professors, explore the surrounding city or countryside. And with graduation a mere eight or ten courses away, encounters with online course listings take on a new significance. As they juggle their schedules, they are no longer just choosing courses; they are relinquishing the possibility of taking that seminar on Shakespeare’s sonnets or that fantastic course on film or that once-in-a-lifetime chance to study with a renowned professor.
Some seniors use this year to take an assortment of courses they have always wanted to take—courses they consider fun. Some fill in their liberal arts curriculum with courses in accounting and entrepreneurship, practical courses they see as an entry to the job market. And others streamline their academic and co-curricular involvement, focusing on an honors thesis or a science research project, a music recital, or a drama production. This represents the culmination of years of effort, and for these students the sense of accomplishment has a tangible by-product.
A graduating civil engineering student beams with pride when describing the final structural design project that he did with a team of three students:
We were told by the faculty, “You will design a bridge over the Mississippi River and you will design everything. You will design every bolt, every plate, every girder, every beam, every cable, every piece of cement. You will design the whole thing, and then you will present it to us, and we will tell you if it is good.”
This is the one class that pulls it all together. For the past two or three years I’ve been saying, All this theory, all this pragmatic, dogmatic stuff—as long as I can put out a good structural design project, I’ll be satisfied. Now I know I can do this. Look at this bridge! You present this thing, and you have a professional engineer saying, “That’s a good bridge.”
And this graduating senior looks back at her growth from freshman to senior year, culminating with her thesis:
Doing a senior honors thesis was very rewarding because it gave me the chance to work so closely with a faculty member, and it allowed me to become so immersed in one topic, but it was such hard work. The most rewarding thing is looking back at the trouble I had in my first year—how uncomfortable, unconfident, and overwhelmed I was—and realizing that during that time, even though I didn’t know it, I was doing the “work” I had to do in order to become who I am now.
Linda Salamon, professor emerita of English and human sciences at George Washington University, is a proponent of honors theses and senior projects:
No matter what the field, I see value in a sustained piece of work over a long period of time. A research effort and synthesis demonstrates to students, not so much that they can master a particular discipline, but that they can use skills of inquiry, analysis, and sometimes creative imagination as well. It’s a culminating experience for students who do it. When they call their parents in the midst of it, moaning, “I’ll never finish,” or “This is a giant monster,” parents shouldn’t worry. They should just encourage them.
For some students the sense of mastery is not tied to a thesis or particular project; it is more internal, less accessible to public display. They exude a sense of joy in their intellectual development. A Chinese studies major at Middlebury exclaims:
I feel on the top of the world. Academically it is my best year. I feel as though I can do anything. My professors agree with what I say, or if they disagree, I realize I can argue with them. I’ve taken lots of classes specific to my field, and I’ve spent a year studying and traveling in China. I don’t depend on gut feelings anymore; I can back up what I say with sources and cogent reasoning. Whatever I say has some validity to it. I know I can say something without making a fool of myself.
And a graduating history major, while enjoying the richness of his senior studies, realizes that the end of his college experience marks the beginning of his commitment to learning for the rest of his life:
Since I’ve found something that interests me, that I want to learn about, this year has been incredible for me academically. I want to take classes on my own until I’m 60 or 80 because now I realize there’s so much more to learn, and I’ll study because I enjoy it and not because I have to. There’s a reason for it. It won’t be for a distribution requirement; it won’t be for my major or for my minor; it will be because I’m interested and I really want to know.
Lacking a crystal ball to predict their future, seniors look back, sometimes wistfully, often with amazement, at the accrued accomplishments and changing perspectives of past months and years:
I keep having these total flashbacks of four years. I can just picture myself waiting in line as a freshman, not knowing what to do next, staring at the map, trying to figure it out. I’ve done so many things, been so many places, met so many people. I’ve done some really crazy things. I think about how it’s all progressed and how much I’ve matured.
College opened my eyes to life and what happens—good and bad. I had no idea how bad things could get—or how good—or how different people can be. In high school it was almost like a mold that everyone fits into. Last year my floor had a lot of international students and I lived with people from countries I didn’t even know existed. I learned about everything from food—like how Latin people don’t eat much peanut butter—to how Pakistani people get married, to dances and clothing and a little bit of language. It’s made me much more tolerant—more open-minded. Not many things surprise me anymore.
When I came to college I saw everything as black and white. I was idealistic—but I didn’t really know what to do with my idealism. I was much more judgmental. Like when I came back home during break freshman year, I thought my old high school friends were so conservative—so provincial. Now I have come to see things as less black and white—there’s a lot more gray. I still don’t know exactly what I’m going to do, but I know I want to work for social change. My experience with community service, my semester in Nepal, my honors thesis in American culture studies on welfare reform—all these have given me a lot more perspective.
It’s hard to believe it now, but before I came here I was so close to my parents that I actually felt scared to be away from my mom. Everyone always said we’re so much alike. As time went on, I saw things about my parents I hadn’t noticed before. You know how when you go out of the country you notice things about your own country when you come back. That’s how it was when I went home. My parents gave me the space to be critical of them—and that made it easier for me. It also made it easier that they have their own lives, their own interests, work, and community. They aren’t trying to live through me and I can be different from them—even though we still basically have the same values and I love and respect them more than ever.
Somewhere I had this assumption that things would be taken care of at this stage—that I would pack up all my personal problems and blithely move on to start life anew in another city. All of a sudden I realized that it was not going to be quite so simple. I see the complexities of things so much more now. It’s not that my life is more complex. I guess I’m just more aware of the complexities. No more good, bad; right, wrong. It’s harder this way. My mom says it’s all just part of growing up.
Many express frustration and regrets as well—thoughts of lost opportunity and squandered time. They often describe such thoughts, however, with newly acquired perspective on their total college experience:
At the beginning of the year and part of this semester, I would kick myself about, oh God, I wish I’d done that, and I did so much wrong in college—but I guess part of growing up is knowing there are going to be regrets. There are things you’re going to mess up—then realizing why you didn’t do things as well as you could have and learning from that.
Some students have to come to terms with the fact that they haven’t done well in college. Occasionally, students who’ve scraped by with C’s and D’s fail in their final semester. Unable to graduate with their class, they face summer school and an anticlimactic finish. This is a difficult scenario for everyone involved. An academic dean who deals with this each spring reminds parents:
The student knows this is a failure—it’s a failure in the biggest task he’s undertaken in life to date. And he needs his parents to be there for him. Parents should remember, it’s not their own failure.
Senior year is a time of intensity and contradiction—of the highs of accomplishments and the lows of dreams unfulfilled; of the comfort of familiarity and the anxiety of the unknown looming ahead. For many, there is a sense of things coming together, of goals reached, of efforts rewarded. And yet, standing at the top of the mountain, there is scarcely time to admire the view. Self-confidence becomes shaky as thoughts of the future invade the present.
As seniors make forays into the world beyond the campus, the question “What’s next?” is never far from their thoughts. Some who are doing internships in a brokerage house or a lab, in a juvenile court or an art gallery, wonder throughout—is this what I want to do next year? For as long as they can remember, their occupation has been student, and September has meant going back to school. But now September conjures up either a blank, a void, or transient images of where they will be, whom they’ll be with, or what they’ll be doing a year from now. Some hedge their bets and apply to graduate school and for jobs simultaneously. Some become immobilized and do nothing. Still others make a conscious decision to concentrate on school and postpone the search until after graduation.
Although many eventually will seek advanced degrees, the majority of today’s college seniors face the tensions and uncertainties of searching for their first job in a period of rapidly shifting employment opportunities. Dressed in their interview suits, future bankers, consultants, and corporate trainees run—or wobble on newly purchased high heels—from an oriental philosophy class to a meeting with a recruiter from Bank of America. They write resumes and practice their interviewing skills on camera.
Those aspiring to attend graduate or professional schools write applications and compare their entrance test scores with an intensity reminiscent of their former bouts with SATs. Others who have no idea what they want to do are sure that everyone else does. Waves of panic sweep over most seniors periodically, sometimes triggered by a friend’s job offer or their own rejection letter.
At just the time that students may be feeling vulnerable and looking to their parents for reassurance, many parents become anxious as well. Instead of providing a calming perspective, they often inadvertently add their own worries to those of their children. Separation issues resurface as they look forward to the end of tuition bills, but wonder if these will be replaced by other burdens, financial and emotional. What if he doesn’t get a job? What if she doesn’t get a fellowship? What if he wants to come back home to live? How will she pay off student loans?
Even those who have been avid supporters of a broad liberal arts education may get the jitters about job prospects when the end is in sight. Fathers who had not been involved in the brouhaha of “getting in” four years earlier suddenly call inquiring about on-campus interviews by major corporations. “I know you don’t want to work for Procter & Gamble, but perhaps you should have a contingency plan in case newspaper writing doesn’t work out.” “What if the start-up doesn’t actually start?” Mothers give unsolicited advice about how to dress and act in interviews. Parents who just months before bragged of their daughter’s independent travel on another continent now worry that she will be unable to figure out the next step in her own future.
Parents who forge ahead as if the job hunt is their own are often puzzled by their offspring’s negative reaction when they call to announce that they have set up an interview for him or her with a friend or client. Others are more subtle, hinting, “I saw a great article on new forms of networking.”
A senior from Dallas describes the added burden of her parents’ interrogating phone calls:
My parents have been more involved than ever this year. They call wanting information. “How’s it going? How’re you doing? Have you heard from this school? Have you heard from that school? What are you doing this summer? Do you have a job? Do you have a place to stay?”
It’s hard. I already expect a lot from myself. Then to be bombarded with questions by them makes it harder. I want to say, “Look Mom, look, Dad, I know how important this all is.” They don’t seem to understand that I am aware, that I do know what’s important. I wish they’d say stuff like, “We know that you’re going through a lot. We know it’s tough.” Or ask, “Are you nervous? Are you scared?” They seem to just be concerned with the facts.
A senior from Phoenix adds:
I think for my parents what’s been tough is that they haven’t been here—haven’t been part of my world. When they ask me lots of questions, I feel affronted. Like when I was applying for a Fulbright, my mom asked me what I thought was a ridiculous question about a recommendation. I got really short with her, and we had a big fight. She doesn’t realize that I know you have to prepare for things.
A young woman whose parents are questioning her desire to join Teach for America tries to see things from their point of view:
They haven’t been able to hear the conversations I have with friends and with interviewers about why I’m doing what I’m doing. If my parents were able to be here—to listen in on an interview and hear an interviewer ask me questions and then hear my answers—it would be different. I‘ve done my homework. I need these two years with TFA to be the person I want to become. I want my parents to trust that decision.
Although every senior seems to have at least one friend who has landed the perfect job in the perfect place at a higher-than-hoped-for salary, lots of students do not have everything wrapped up by graduation. It is not unusual for seniors to leave campus after commencement stating, as one student did, “My life is one big if. Nothing is solid right now.”
The ambiguity and uncertainty of not knowing, however, is frustrating, and students appreciate parents who acknowledge this without trying to rush in and solve the problem for them or prod them into instant action.
Understanding and encouragement does not imply a light dismissal of the problem either. An engineering student who, much to his surprise and disappointment, was without a job at graduation found his parents’ buoyant optimism more stressful than helpful: “They don’t seem to understand that I’m really scared about not having a job. And it doesn’t help when they tell me it’s no big deal.”
Knowing that they will soon be on their own, seniors are emphatic about maintaining their sense of autonomy. A former premed who discovered Spanish and international relations during her sophomore year called home with excitement when offered an opportunity to do an internship for Amnesty International after graduation. Her mother, a nurse, was shocked and mystified at the news that her talented and bright daughter was planning to return home to live while participating in an internship:
To my mom, this internship is kind of a black hole. When I called her and told her about it, there was silence at the other end of the phone. I knew she was upset. To her, it’s no payoff for all the work I’ve done. To me, it is the foundation for moving on to something else. It’s very important.
When I switched from premed to Spanish in the middle of sophomore year, that was a hard thing to do because Mom wasn’t happy about it. When I went away to Mexico junior year, it was the first major thing I did without her approval. And it was the best year I’ve ever had.
Now this internship is an opportunity to build a foundation for what I want to do in international relations. For my mom, it’s a culmination of all the changes I’ve made. She’s realizing that I’m going to be doing stuff like this forever, and that’s hard for her to handle. She doesn’t understand the international opportunities of jobs, and what I can do and why I want to travel. My mom grew up in Cleveland and never left; it was an environment where you did something traditional with a name or a title. And I’m never going to have that. I don’t want to have it. She was divorced and worries about my security. If I’m not something with a title, that’s very insecure to her. To me, it’s not. To me, it’s exciting.
Though this young woman longed to maintain the close, loving relationship she and her mother had always enjoyed, she was determined to pursue her own goals. The week after she had called her mother about the internship she wrote to her and essentially laid it on the line. Her confidence in her own identity, in who she has become, is evident:
I wrote an intense letter, spilling my guts, and said, basically, accept me as I am. I said, Would you like me to come home to the suburbs and live there for the rest of my life? That won’t be me. It’s not me; it’s not who I’ve become. You sent me off to college to do well, and I have—and I took advantage of the opportunities and I grew and I traveled and I learned. And now here I am at the point of graduating. I am who I am because of what college has done to me and what I’ve done during college, and it’s too late now. I can’t change that. College is in me.
What a tribute to all college can and should be—the sheer joy of a student’s discovery of the expansive world around her and ultimately of her own expanding self. But as parents, we often cringe when it is our own child who is taking the more adventuresome, less traveled path—or any path that differs from our hopes and expectations. We carry our own agendas. A dentist whose real passion has been an involvement in Jewish volunteer activities has a strong investment in his daughter’s becoming a rabbi. A mother who is a computer programmer has dreams of law school for her daughter. A doctor sees a medical career as the only acceptable route for his son. A bus driver makes sacrifices for the dream of his daughter, the future engineer. But the would-be engineer discovers TV production, and the doctor’s son opts for a graduate degree in classics. The dentist’s daughter forgoes rabbinical school for a career as a Jewish educator, and the young woman whose mother had visions of law school makes a commitment to biotechnology.
Our children will go their separate ways, and so they should. They have become who they are, not who we would have them be. As graduation draws near and students declare their financial independence, both parents and children feel the balance of power shifting between them. Money has, after all, been the one tie that has continued to bind, often unacknowledged but inevitably present in the background.
In many families, issues of money are still under negotiation. Some students have put themselves through college; many have taken out loans and are facing substantial debts. Others worry about building a financial base so that they can go to graduate school in the future. Still others are in the throes of a job hunt. And questions arise for both parents and their children. Who will pay off the loans? Can I retain my independence and live at home? How long am I willing to help subsidize my kid? Who’s going to pay for graduate school? If he lives at home, should I charge him room and board?
Each family has to weigh its own financial realities, values, and needs. Those who talk openly about money matters—expectations and limits—avoid disappointment and resentment at a later date. There are of course no hard-and-fast rules. One student who supported herself all through college decides to live at home so that she can pay off her loans. She is confident and secure in her independence, and her parents, who were unable to pay for college, welcome the chance to be of help. Another senior turns down his parents’ offer to pay for graduate school, even though he knows it will be several years before he can pay for it himself. He’s convinced that the financial ties are too threatening to his autonomy.
A graduating senior reveals that her world feels a bit precarious right now:
When I left for college . . . moneywise, it was a little scary. You don’t know if you’re financially dependent or financially independent or somewhere in between. I’m experiencing that right now as I’m about to go out into the real world. I want to be financially independent, and college has been a good time to learn that . . . like my parents paid for my tuition, and I paid for everything else. But, if I have to be completely financially independent, I kind of freak out about it.
By the time they are seniors, most students have stopped turning to their parents for their primary emotional support, and turn first to their friends and lovers. For many, the heart of college life, especially during these last months, revolves around a cherished group of friends. Much of their undergraduate experience is tied up in a mutual history of heartaches and treasured memories.
As the school year comes to a close, students are aware of the impending separation from those who have become so central to their lives. They plan outings and weekend getaways; some look forward to traveling together before settling into the routine of a job or graduate school; others hope to keep a thread of continuity in their lives by joining forces to live together after graduation.
They look to these trusted friends for confirmation of their decisions and validation of their identity. An about-to-graduate senior from the University of Wisconsin confides:
I went through a stage three months ago of being very remorseful about leaving my security blanket, which this university has become. My friends know Lisa. They know what she stands for, what she does. I’m accepted here. I dread going out into the real world and having to reestablish myself and reintroduce myself. My self-confidence is wavering. I’ve decided to stay in Madison for the summer, live with a good friend, and send out applications.
Those whose plans will clearly take them far away from friends anticipate the grieving process that lies ahead. A young woman who intends to return home to Minnesota before entering divinity school notes:
Part of me dreads after graduation, when I’ve left all my friends and I go home and get depressed and my parents are going to say, “It’s not that bad—get yourself together”—and I’m going to say, “No, let me be depressed. It’s OK for me to feel bad.”
Those who plan to work after graduation worry about leaving behind a world in which they have been surrounded by people their own age—where it’s always easy to find someone to talk to about politics or music or whatever. And there’s always something to do—parties, lectures, concerts. And these events are usually free! As the time to part approaches, they make plans to keep in touch and joke about the reunions they’ll have in the as-yet-unimaginable future. Those who have stayed in close touch with high school friends reassure themselves that they’ll do the same with their friends from college. A senior on her way to medical school says laughingly:
I know I’ll keep up with my friends here. And I know that if I get married, my little kids are going to meet their little kids. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s going to happen. And now I understand that anywhere I go, I’ll be able to make new friends, but that it’s going to take time.
The unspoken intentions of romantic partnerships must now be addressed. Graduation brings a convenient end to some of these twosomes; commitment was only to this time and place. But for many students, conflicts of identity and intimacy are brought clearly into focus at this juncture. Choices are many, and decisions are often painful and poignant: Should I give up the chance to work on Wall Street and pick up whatever I can in Ann Arbor while she goes to grad school? Will our relationship withstand the strain if he’s in D.C. and I’m in Tampa? If we compromise and go to the only law school that accepted both of us, will we end up resenting each other?
Some parents are surprised to find that couples who appear to be very much in love put career priorities ahead of personal ones. Many young men and women acknowledge that their priority is to establish a more solid sense of themselves beyond the campus world before they make a long-term commitment to someone else.
After an intense year-and-a-half relationship, a future graduate student in education finds herself at a crossroads:
The past twenty years I’ve been my parents’ child, and even at college, you’re not a full adult. And I’m getting out, and here I have a chance to be me, and that’s most important. I love Sean a lot, but after twenty years, it’s time for me now; it’s time for me to do what’s best for me. And if what’s best for him is going to coincide with that, well, that’s great, that’s fantastic. But he’s not the most important thing in my life right now. I don’t expect to be the most important thing in his life either.
Parents may be caught off guard when they find that their child is making plans to live with a partner. What may look like impulsive, cavalier behavior may actually represent a carefully thought-out decision. A senior at Dartmouth explains that his parents were taken aback when he called to tell them that he and his girlfriend were moving to San Francisco together:
I had intentionally not told my parents much about our relationship. I didn’t tell them anything until it was a fait accompli. It ended up being more of a scene than it would have been otherwise. They were very upset because they had no idea how important she was to me. I hadn’t told them. In trying to avoid confrontation earlier in the year, I brought on more. I underestimated them. After all, I’m the fifth child, and nothing I could have done would have been a surprise. If I had to do it over, I would have let them know more along the way.
In the midst of all this planning for the future, saying good-bye to dear friends, wrapping up the last round of papers and finals, students feel the pressure mount. A chemistry major from Puerto Rico recounts:
This is probably the most confusing time in my life. Everything is up in the air. I haven’t heard yet from med school in Puerto Rico or if I have a job here. I’m packing up four years’ worth of stuff, but I don’t know where I’m going to be. I’m still under pressure in one class—a take-home exam I have to finish by tomorrow. My parents have a new house. Nothing’s solid, past or future. It’s nine days before graduation, and I never thought it’d be like this.
Even those with definitive plans begin to feel disoriented, to experience waves of highs and lows as the countdown to graduation begins. When they finish their last exams, everything comes to a halt. “It’s like coming off drugs,” said an engineering student from a highly competitive university:
You’ve spent four years of intense pressure, day in and day out, and your body has become used to such incredibly high levels of stress. I keep thinking, What do I have to do? What’s my homework? I’ve got to race to get this done. And then I remember, it’s over.
And while her parents are focused on her getting a job, this student has very different things on her mind:
It’s a weird time, like I can’t imagine not having any deadlines anymore. No more semesters. I just don’t know how to plan anything after graduation. I want to take a road trip with a friend for a week. I’m not really nervous about not having a job. I know I’ll get a job in the fashion industry. I’ve been working every summer since high school, and I’ve made so many connections in that industry, it’s ridiculous. But it’s scary to think about everything being so open-ended, like I’d like to go to Spain, but I can’t just take off for Spain without a job . . . but once I get a job, I can’t go to Spain. How do you build breaks—time for fun—in your life? I can’t imagine it.
On the brink of adulthood, these young men and women retreat to realms of childlike playfulness. “I’ve done a lot of crazy things with my friends,” said a business student in his final weeks. “Nothing harmful. Just absurd. Like walking six miles to White Castle for a hamburger last weekend.” The campus takes on an air of celebration, a spontaneous round of parties and picnics, barefoot students cavorting with friends among the ubiquitous campus canines chasing sticks and Frisbees, scantily clad seniors lazing in the sun—a week’s hiatus before the finale.
Students put finishing touches on plans for the big day—graduation. Groups of friends make arrangements for cocktail parties and brunches and look forward to joint family celebrations. For a number of students from divorced families, graduation stirs up the pain of unresolved family conflicts. Some of them anticipate having to orchestrate the comings and goings of parents, stepparents, and grandparents who barely speak to each other. They talk about feeling trapped and resent the burden of having to hold things together on their special day. For many children of divorced parents, however, this isn’t a problem. Their parents put their own conflicts aside and come together to share the joy of this milestone in their child’s life.
When graduation day finally arrives, the campus is at its most resplendent, lawns clipped and bushes pruned. Instant gardens have sprung up in newly planted flower beds. The carillon rings out familiar tunes, and with luck the weather cooperates to produce the picture-book aura of the admission office’s most enticing photos.
Parents, some with young children in tow or with grandparents on their arm, view the proceedings through the eyes of omnipresent cell phones and cameras. Reflecting the diversity of the graduating class, assembled guests sport turbans and head scarves, three-piece suits and saris, sandals and cowboy boots.
The students congregate, a sea of robes and mortarboards. Beneath the solemnity of academic garb, they express their individuality with Hawaiian shirts and shorts, purple sandals and red high-tops, sunglasses of every imaginable color. Atop their mortarboards they have taped champagne glasses, pinwheels, a Chinese symbol, a sign that reads “Hire me.” They carry everything from bottles of champagne, balloons, and flowers to a stuffed Snoopy dressed in full graduation regalia. They snap selfies for instant posting. As they line up for the processional, groups of friends join one another, expressing disbelief that this day has finally come. Their irreverent humor hints at their anxiety and belies the formality of the ritual: “I was once a waiter. I can do it again!” “I think I’ll pick my grad school by what cool color robes and hoods they have; I like Stanford hoods myself.” “It’s with all of you guys that I got my best education. Good luck, we’re getting out of here!”
The ceremony starts with a roll of drums or flair of trumpets, followed by the color and pageantry of a medieval academic procession. The music builds to the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance”—guaranteed to send chills up the spines of even the most jaded of graduation-goers.
Among the speeches and musical interludes and conferring of honorary degrees, there are the familiar phrases that invite the assembled graduates to “enter the company of educated men and women.” The final words are greeted with cheers, popping champagne corks, and tossed mortarboards.
The grandeur and pageantry of this final college ritual is ephemeral; it remains only in memory and family photos. What endures is less dramatic and unfolds over time.
In the words of a brand-new graduate:
It’s not like right after graduation time stops and you just stand there and look at this big event—and this big white light comes out of the sky and says, “Sandy, you’re 21! Look into the past at your life. Look forward at your future.”
You just take off your cap and gown, and it’s still the quad. The place hasn’t changed, but I have. Four years ago I wouldn’t have understood this, but I feel like I’m leaving college with so many more questions than when I came in—and that’s great. I know what the questions are and how to go about finding the answers.
As the recessional sounds, our children march out with arms around each other. We stand aside and watch them from a distance, catching a glimpse of the world that has been theirs for four years. We feel pride and joy and tenderness—but we also know that this is their moment, that they are creating their own futures.