SeniorityOctober 15th, 2000Well, I'm a quarter of the way through my senior year at UND. It's quite unusual to realize that I am once again an upperclassman. For the first month or so of the semester, I didn't really get it. Then I slowly began to realize a few things - that this might be the last time I watch the leaves change color on campus, the last time I watch the homecoming parade, and so on. It won't be long and I'll be out of here. Out of here - at times it sounds like a nice place to be. No tests, no homework, no more hectic class schedules. Up until now, I've been anxious for the day to come when I could drop my books and go make some money (and possibly set up some kind of life?). In my attempts to reach that goal, I wandered between the booths at the recent job fair on campus. I was proud to write "computer science" on my name tag - the companies like that. Anyway, I stopped to chat with a former classmate, Tim, who moved to Nevada after graduation. He likes his job, but says he'd love to be back in school. I was confused. Why would anyone want to go back to this stress and confusion? Then I thought about it for a while. It's obvious - school is appealing because of the stress and confusion. It's exciting, in a sort of masochistic way. It brings us students together, as a group who has endured a common challenge. We can share our pain and understand what each other are going through. There's a sort of camaraderie that lingers after a tough exam, for example. I suppose it's something like the friendship you'd find between veterans of war. One veteran may say to another, "Remember when we took that heavy fire in such-and-such city. I thought we'd never make it out of there." Students can share similar tales of horror: "Dr. So-and-so's test was hell! I'm so glad it's over. And how 'bout that question #3! I thought I wasn't going to make it!" It's more than that, of course. In college I'm learning a wide variety of things. I've gained insight into the functioning of databases, the functioning of the Earth, multimedia technologies, photography, diseases, literature. The list goes on. While I'm not really passionate about a lot of that stuff, it is mildly entertaining. But what do I expect after UND? I expect life to settle down into a monotonous pattern of work-home-work. I have no idea where I'll be living or what exactly I'll be doing. I only know that I won't have such a widely varying schedule or task list. Unless, of course, I make it more interesting in some way. After all, life is what you make of it. Until I settle into some pattern of work-home-work in a few years, I fully expect life to be quite chaotic and both pleasant and horribly difficult to endure. ~ |