Well seniors, the countdown begins. There are less than 100 days till graduation and I am honestly unsure how I want to process it. If overthinking was a class here, I would have definitely aced it, so I’m genuinely surprised that I am not freaking out. As much as dates are just a number, hitting double digits until graduation has a lot more weight to it. To keep it brief, I am in shock, and I’m actively trying to not think about graduating.
I’m in a state of shock for the most cliche reason, I literally don’t know where the time went. I still vividly remember my first visit to Stevens when I was literally dragged to the campus. I never wanted to go to a school in state. I never wanted to go to a small school. I never wanted to come to a school that didn’t have a football team. My angsty 17 year old self plopped down into Undergraduate Admissions having a preconceived notion that I was going to hate this school. It’s really a funny point to make because junior year of high school me wanted nothing to do with Stevens, and now senior year of college me obviously thinks otherwise. It seems like yesterday I was visiting for the first time, receiving my acceptance, coming for Pre-Orientation, et cetera that I feel like I did not have a chance to really process it all. In a blink of an eye, I got to less than 100 days left and in the next blink I’ll probably be walking out of graduation asking myself “when did this happen?” Through the complaining about Senior Design and trying to figure out what the word technogenesis means, all seniors could probably agree that they don’t know where the time went as well. Even to the folk who are ready to bust out and start the rest of their lives, they have to admit that the last four to five years passed like it was nothing.
Being in the double digits with days left until graduation is a warning flag in many ways. Between finishing up classes, finding a job, enjoying the last Tuesdays at Biergarten, it feels like there is a countdown clock ticking in the back of my head, maybe even a time bomb. But to quote the ever glorious Lin Manuel Miranda, “That clock you hear is the sound of your own heart.” It might make sense to hit the panic button and try to fit everything in before “the clock runs out” until graduation but there isn’t a clock, all there is is you. Honestly, there is no point in worrying about how many days there are left because it isn’t about what you can squeeze in – it’s about what memories you can make. I’m actively not thinking about it because I’m not trying to race against a clock. If anything, I’m trying to embrace it.
So I might be in shock and trying not to think about graduating but I still need to get to graduation. There might be double digit days left but there are still hundreds of things we seniors need to get done, the finishing aspect is something that cannot be forgotten. Now is such a confusing yet exciting time of our Stevens career but nonetheless, let the countdown begin.
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