It’s hard to know where to start this one. It’s not the beginning of the end, but we’re almost… just about… kinda sorta… but not quite yet… at the very end. I’m in that weird phase where I accepted a full-time job and know where I’m headed, but also know that I still have roughly three months until the rest of my life starts. And as much as I would like to just enjoy the time that’s left of my final year of college with all my friends, this pandemic has made that much harder. It was finally supposed to be my turn to have senioritis, but having senioritis while you’re (almost) all alone isn’t quite the same.
I remember all of my older friends going to their last Founder’s Day Ball, doing the bare minimum to get by so they could go out any night of the week they wanted, and laughing all the way to graduation. They were making plans for those few months before they started school, so they could travel the world with no cares or just let their brains melt on the beach. But it doesn’t feel like that’s an option anymore. It seems like my inconsequential school work is just going to transform into the extraordinarily consequential work of a real job the second I set off the (hopefully non-virtual) graduation stage. I’m supposed to be designing bridges for crying out loud, and not just a fake one for my senior design project anymore.
The best part about this whole college experience is that I had the chance to make mistakes and take risks. And most of the time if those risks didn’t pay off I could learn from it, move on, and try again. But now, I’ll have an official title as a structural engineer, designing actual bridges, that actual people are going to use someday. And if anything goes wrong, I’ll actually be someone people blame. It won’t just be a bad grade or caustic comment on Canvas that I forget about the next day anymore. People’s lives could be on the line.
But I guess that’s what Stevens prepared me for. To look at that challenge and that risk and take it head-on with the experience I now have. I know there’s much more to learn on the job, but not knowing is the scary part. It almost reminds me of my very first exam here at Stevens for Chem I where I thought if I failed my entire college career was over. And to my shock and horror, I did fail that first exam even though I went confidently into that lecture hall ready to answer any question that came my way. Obviously, that one test didn’t make much of a difference in the end. Although at the time, I felt like a fraud being here.
So I guess more than anything that’s how I feel again, but this time I won’t just have 50 minutes, an equation sheet, and a scientific calculator. I’ll have the experience, degree, and that same scientific calculator. But the experience is the difference at the end of the day. I may still feel like a fraud until I get the experience under my belt. Thinking back on it, my Stevens experience is what helped me land the job, and not fail anymore chem tests, and not feel like as much of a fraud.
So I guess this is my turn, just with some face masks, extra hand sanitizer, and a reality that sets in a bit quicker. It’s also my turn to try and have some fun, get by, get going, and make the most of what I can even with the future looming behind me. It’s just a little different from recent memory. I have no choice but to accept this reality for now, so I guess I’ll make the best of what little is left in my control.
Senioritis is an Opinion column written by a current Stevens student in their last year of study to discuss life experiences during their final year at Stevens, and other related subject matter.
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