Two weeks ago, I graduated from college. After 4 years of stress, all night sessions in the library, and constant involvement on campus, it’s all over. How does it feel? Well, it’s a bit of a mess, to be honest.
You probably expect me to say it feels AMAZING! Trust me, it does, but it’s a lot more than that. I’m incredibly happy it’s over, but I feel like I lost a huge part of what I’ve known for the last four years. Manhattanville College was my home. I lived on that campus, I worked three on-campus jobs, ran a club and participated in plenty of them. Manhattanville was my life. Everything I did and everything I knew was on that campus. I was in this comfortable bubble that gave me all the opportunities I needed in order to succeed, to enjoy and to simply learn.
Now, I’m back home in Brooklyn. I love, love, LOVE being home, but what am I suppose to do now? I don’t have all the things I did at Manhattanville to keep me occupied. My closest college friends don’t live in the city and I can’t see them every single day like I used to. Nothing is the same anymore. It’s time to embrace change.
Change is something I’ve never been good with, but I will say I’ve grown to accept and appreciate change over the last four years. Naturally, like any unemployed college graduate would experience… I had a mini panic attack. For the first week out of college, I stayed home and slept off four years of exhaustion. I caught up on my favorite YouTube videos, I ate a bunch of home cooked food (I missed my Mom’s cooking so much!), and I only went out for simple errands. Then one day, I bought a bottle of wine, ran a bath filled with Lush products, put on a face mask, and sat in the tub to think about life. Yes, for two hours I sat in a tub with the sound of Ed Sheeran’s voice in the background and thought about what the hell I'm supposed to do. Sounds a bit scary, right?
I needed to regroup. I had to rethink, plan and figure out what comes next. I already made the decision to take a year off before graduate school. In this one-year period, I want to accomplish things I couldn’t even think about when I was at Manhattanville. Such things like getting my license and getting a car (even though I embrace the subway more than any other form of transportation), traveling aboard, shedding off the weight gained thanks to all the dollar beers consumed, and simply to live. I want to know what life feels like without school dictating everything I do. If you think about it, school guides us. It makes us plan, makes choices and it has guided us for a majority of our lives from the time we’re 4 years old in Pre-Kindergarten to college. Now it’s time for me and only me to dictate my life.
So, what’s next? To answer your question, what’s next is my time to live. It’s my time to be with myself in this big world and to learn how to continue learning without school. It’s a chance for me to build strength and be more comfortable in doing things alone (which can be hard in NYC). While it’s terrifying not knowing what’s coming next, I’m excited to take this ride with great hope that there is a brighter scene at the end of the tunnel.
Senior Photos: Tara Murphy @taralaurenarts
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