Senior Year

It's strange. Today I went and got the form to declare my intent to graduate this coming spring. I am a senior. And yet, I don't feel like a senior. In high school, your class status was a solid thing that you fit into. When you were a senior in high school, you felt on top of the world. Here in college, the only class rank that was well defined was my freshman year. I was a new kid. After you become acquainted with life on campus and the phenomenon of college classes occurring only periodically throughout the day, instead of back to back all at once, time seems to run together. You count hours instead of classes, and even "semester" is nothing more than a block of time. The apparent "density" or course load of that semester is variable. And so, while most would consider a college degree to take four years, it's easy to let the actual length of time for that accomplishment trickle on longer to 4 and a half or 5 years.

No one other than yourself will really think twice about the rate of progress you're making. In college, if someone takes a lesser course load, or if it takes them 5 years to graduate instead of four, that person is not thought of as a failure. They are thought of as someone who is taking their time, who has other demands on their time and energy besides just school. In fact, the people who graduate in four years are almost seen as the overachievers, the go-getters, and the pushers. The people that take longer are seen as the people who have set a different pace for themselves, who have a family, who understand that life is not a race.

So anyway, today I realized that, yes, I am a senior, and should be graduating this coming spring, as long as I pass everything. I really don't feel like I've been here for as long as I have already, and even though I can hardly wait to start my life as a "real" adult and wife, I also feel like school could just stretch on and on and become this never-ending thing, and no one would think anything really odd about that. Where has the time gone? I just got here. Didn't I?