By Emily Ferro –
Media Credit: Emily Ferro - It will come to you eventually!
Typically, as soon as a student enters high school, parents, teachers and adults generally begin to preach the old adage, “Enjoy it while it lasts; time will fly by.” Hearing this phrase is like a rite of passage: a student is not legally or universally allowed to turn 16 without someone advising them that the fun times are not meant to last. But, as common as the phrase is, students’ tend to completely ignore it.
I, like so many others, was most definitely a victim of this phrase. Although the warning may have gone in one ear and out the other, it does not mean that the adults who spewed it were incorrect. It has been a number of years since this phrase made its way into my life, and many days I have to laugh just because I thought that parents were trying to pass on good advice and the best they could come up with was essentially, “have fun,” and then some.
Now, as a college senior, my undergrad years are nearing their end, and a very large part of me would rather take on a room full of tarantulas than take on the “real world.” While graduation may be months away, for many of the seniors here at Salve it may as well be in the coming month, because now is crunch time. Now is the time to write a thesis, file for degrees and find out which family members are attending graduation so they know how many tickets to request. Now is a time for seniors to finish all the major requirements so they can take that photography class next semester. Now is the time for scouring the job search engines to weigh the chances of finding their place, or taking the GREs (even though they thought they were done with standardized testing when they filled in the last bubble of the SAT years ago). Now is the time to perfect a resume and to fill out applications.
Through all of this mayhem, it seems seniors finally begin to understand the meaning of time flying. They begin to do what they can to hold on to the moment and enjoy it for what it is. In between moments of madness and senioritis, seniors group together and enjoy events hosted by Salve, a friend of theirs, or even an event they host themselves. Now is also the time for living each day as it comes.
This semester, I feel I have learned so many skills that will help me later in life, and I never even realized it was happening. I learned the real definition of multitasking, as well as time-management. I’ve considered super-gluing my planner to my hand because I never seem to put it down anyway. I’ve learned that now and then, even if there is a boat-load of homework to be done, watching an episode of your favorite show could help far more than spending that half hour doing the homework might have. I’ve learned that the better I dress for the day, the more capable I feel of making it through.
Perhaps most importantly, I have learned that as terribly intimidating as the real world may be, for myself and for the class of 2012, we are prepared. Sometimes I wish they had a class called, “surviving after graduation 101,” but really, that’s what every class here at Salve has been teaching us. We didn’t learn it all at once, but through every semester, our professors have been forcing nuggets of information into our heads, however resistant we may have been.
So, class of 2012, next time you are sitting with anxiety while writing a resume or applying for graduate school, try not to freak out. You’ll pass in the real world with flying colors. After all, that’s what we went to school for, isn’t it?
