Everything you’ll miss when you graduate from Georgia Tech

We are not ready to start adulting yet

If you’ve ever woken up for an 8AM exam at 8:15, ran out the door with just a pencil and full knowledge that you are so screwed it’s not even worth freaking out about, calmly made it to class at 8:30 and passed the exam with flying colors (or not), you just might be a college senior.

Senior year in college is nothing like senior year in high school. In college, you have no idea what will happen after you graduate. All you know is that you will be stepping outside of a fun, comfortable bubble where you had all your friends by your side and enjoyed the perks of student life. So while we’re applying to jobs, grad school, and making real world plans, we tend to agonize over the fact that we will officially be stepping into “adult” territory — whatever that means. And this being the end of an era, there’s bound to be certain things that we all will miss about college.

Student perks

As soon as you wave around that ID card with your (slightly embarrassing) freshman year picture, a whole new world of opportunities appears. Discount tickets to the movies, a museum, or an upcoming event in your city? Cheaper subscription to organizations and the Wall Street Journal to make you feel smarter? These are just some of the things that make me want to be in college forever. So pro tip: don’t burn your student ID in your post graduation bonfire because unless you age ridiculously fast, you’ll want to try to enjoy these benefits as long as you can.

Low stakes

One thing I’ve always been encouraged to do in college is make mistakes. This means, try new things, be a little irresponsible and have fun. Classes are important, but grades aren’t everything. If you show up to an exam hungover once on a Wednesday, you’ll (probably) be fine.

Very few of the choices you make in college can seriously derail your life, but almost all of them will be memories and stories you tell for years to come, meaning that you should take opportunities and try to learn from them. When you graduate, you’re responsible for your own life, and you’re no longer given the “kids will be kids” pass for your poor decisions. So you should make calculated risks and fun plans without giving it too much thought. I think this is one of the parts about college that I will miss the most, and for the longest time.

Free food

When else in our lives will we get flooded with hundreds of invitations to attend random events, potentially learn new things and get a free meal without even asking? Granted, most companies nowadays (probably realizing how much people miss college) are starting to offer free food all the time. It’s true, there’s no better way to get to someone’s heart than their stomach, which is why college will always have a special place in ours.

Proximity to thousands of people our own age

Transitioning to work life and an office environment is actually quite difficult because you quickly realize that you are probably not used to talking to “real” adults very much. Think about everyone you interact with in college. How many of those people are above the age of 25? Conversations at work change from the topics of partying and exams to being about kids, traffic, and vacations. There’s nothing quite like the freedom of college where you get to hang out with any one of your friends and meet new ones all the time, all living within a few miles of each other.

Fresh starts all the time

In college, every semester is a new adventure. You get to take new classes, meet new people and share new memories in your organizations and with your friends. It’s always something to look forward to in a couple of months — whether you are having a great semester or a miserable one, you can file away those experiences and focus on starting over. After graduation, time just becomes, well, indefinite. You then have the responsibility of seeking out your own change, which can be daunting when you have bills to pay and work to complete.

Weird schedules being the norm

In college, we get to decide what we do with our time. We can choose classes that start at noon, go to sleep at 2 am, and spend the hours in between doing anything we want. Chances are, whether you want to work out, eat out, or hang out with your friends, you don’t have to go far. When you start working, though, it’s a clock-in, clock-out lifestyle, no matter how much “flex time” your hip, cool bosses try to give you. And there’s definitely no equivalent of “skipping class” that ends on a happy note.

Vacations

I definitely got burnt out more times than I could count with just a 3-month internship. So the idea of working indefinitely with only a few paid breaks is deeply saddening to most of us. Unfortunately, that’s just how the working world is, and we can either calmly accept it, or plan out the best graduation trip ever that will hold us off until the next Christmas.

That being said, you should travel as much as you can in college. Study abroad is an absolutely amazing concept that cannot be overemphasized. Take advantage of it, and make sure to go on as many trips with your friends as possible; you never know when you’ll be in the same place at the same time again.

Access to some of the smartest people you know

We take professors, and even some of our peers, for granted, but everyone in college is there for the same reason – to share knowledge. And if we don’t take advantage and participate in that, then we’ve wasted our time and money. I will definitely miss learning from some of the greatest experts on so many different subjects, and learning valuable life skills from my peers as well. You’ve heard it before — students are like sponges, and we have the capability to retain a lot more information than we think. In the real world, we have careers that require us to be really good at one thing, but in college, we can afford to take time to learn about absolutely everything we want to.

 

We all have a million things about college that we absolutely love, even after the stressful, confusing, and crazy parts of it all. In the end, this is a time of pure personal growth that is completely incomparable with any other time in our lives. So seniors, don’t be “too cool for school.” Before you know it, you’ll be out of here and it will all be a distant memory, so cherish every moment and make the most of everything — you never know what will make for a great story years from now.

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