Graduation

As of right now, I am intending to graduate on December 19th of this year. By my count, that means I have exactly 272 days left of college. I remember graduating from high school. Everyone was talking about how they did not want to leave and how they would miss their friends. I felt completely different. I was ready to move on. If you ask me, my junior year was more like a senior year whereas my senior year was almost like an encore. I put a lot of time and effort into excelling at all the various activities I was in during my junior year. I definitely made the most improvement. I also probably had the most drama that year, but I guess that is what high school is for. How else are you supposed to start building your character? By the time my senior year rolled around, I knew where I was going to college, and I had a scholarship locked up in October. I was primarily kicking back and enjoying my last chance to do everything. In some ways, I think maybe I should have cared a little more about the outcome than how much I enjoyed just participating. Still, I am perfectly happy with how high school turned out for me. I knew everything I did was my last and it could not be any other way. Why worry or be sad about it then? Finally, graduation came and I was more than happy to cap off my high school experience with the traditional ceremony.

Now I am nearing the end of my college years. Today is the last day of my final spring break. I have to go back to class tomorrow and all the homework that comes with it. I will spend one final summer living in Des Moines working as an intern for Principal Financial Group. I will return to Cedar Falls in August for four months of classes, homework, and work. There will also be one final UNI football season to enjoy. I have only missed four home games the entire time I have been attending UNI. They were mostly due to family events such as a wedding, a couple birthdays, and Thanksgiving. However, I think I more than made up for it by being in the marching band my freshman year and going to the national championship game in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2005. As friends and family can attest, I live and die by the success of the UNI football team every fall.

Still, as I sit here thinking about needing to get some homework done (I have put off almost all of it this entire week), I cannot help thinking how much I will not miss the classes and the homework. I love the access to professors and all the knowledge. I hate the time some professors expect from their students. This particularly applies to the liberal arts core professors. The classes I have enjoyed the most are by far the ones where the professor realizes we have lives and would like to do more with them than their class. I probably retain more information from these classes too because I find myself becoming more immersed in them and enjoying them more as well. I had one professor once tell me their thoughts on how much homework a student should have per hour spent in class. Based on their formula and my calculations of a typical college student's needs for sleep, eating, showering, and work, a college student needed 172 hours in a 168 hour week. Awesome...

The more college drags on, the more I find myself missing free time to hangout with friends, play videogames, watch sports, or tinker with my latest techno-toys. I have realized this as it is primarily what I spent my spring break doing besides preparing to move to Des Moines for the summer where I have the time and money to do all these things as well. I remember people telling me when I was in high school that college was the time to get your hobby projects done because otherwise you would never have time again. Looking back, I just laugh at that. College is precisely what gets in the way of me having the time to do them. By the time I get to my breaks, I am so burnt out, I usually get very little done. I realize what I classify as hobby projects has changed quite a bit, but I will still have more time once I am done with class. You can tell me I am wrong, but I will not listen to you. You can tell me having a family and kids gets in the way, but I will tell you I count that as a hobby project because you would not choose to go that route unless you get some sort of pleasure out of it. Having to go to Little League games, soccer practice, and dance recitals sounds just fine to me. I still take time to sit at Little League games or watch the Little League World Series on television.

Long story short, I am going to graduate soon. I am not sad about moving on with my life. I will treasure my final nine months, and then I will continue to go forward. I will come back to hangout with friends and go to UNI sports from time to time, but I will not be depressed or say my best days are behind me. Graduation, here I come.