The End is Near

Mortarboards and tassels, gowns with sashes and ropes, parents crying, cigars smoking—the ingredients of a college graduation have always seemed distant in someone else’s kitchen. But the days have turned to weeks have turned to months then whole semesters, and suddenly seven of them are behind me. I’m standing in that kitchen, now. Graduation is coming.

I have been aware of graduation since before I could properly spell the word. It seemed like the pinnacle of the young protagonist’s life in any movie, when they could finally be stripped away from the childish straps of high school and go off freely into the world. That might’ve just been the plot I subconsciously focused on, actually…

It’s one thing to graduate from high school, of course—but it’s objectively scary to graduate from college. Graduating college means departing from the past four years of our lives, which we’ll be told are “the best years of our lives” regardless of whether they actually were or not. 

A lot has happened in these past few years. This won’t be a sonata about the college experiences we’ll leave behind, like extracurricular drug experiments or embarrassing black-out memories that just won’t get repressed… What was I saying? Oh—for most of us, the college years are abundant with colorful events that we might’ve never experienced outside of this environment. 

What makes these years so special, though, isn’t the fact that they possess wild stories or adventures—it’s the people we share them with. There’s something quite special about college that creates a shared identity, a collective experience that binds us together. We all sit under the same metaphorical umbrella that is “American University,” or any other school, sharing some of the same struggles and victories even if we’re studying completely different things. When we have nothing in common at all, at least we’re Eagles.

I believe a large part of the anxiety around graduation isn’t just about leaving this structured environment or facing the “real world,” no matter how many Boomers insist. It’s about watching this temporary community we’ve built slowly disperse. We soon won’t have the convenience of walking across campus to see our closest friends, or bumping into familiar faces on the quad. Connections will require more mutual effort, more intentional maintenance—relying on this for the rest of my life is scarier than just walking across the commencement stage.

There’s nothing to fear but fear itself—and the post-grad student loans… 

Here’s the truth as I see it: graduation isn’t an ending, it’s just a transformation. While we leave behind the comfort of our liberal arts university bubble, we step into a world of possibilities that we’re more prepared for than we think. Our education hasn’t just given us knowledge which may or may not be helpful in finding a job, it’s given us the tools to adapt, to learn, to grow.

To my fellow soon-to-be graduates: please spend these remaining moments with intention. Have those long conversations with your people at 2 AM, even if you have an 8 AM class. Tell that person how you really feel. Sit in your favorite spot on campus just a little longer. These moments aren’t precious because they’re ending—they’re precious because they’re happening right now!

The world beyond graduation isn’t something to fear. It’s something to embrace, with all its uncertainties and opportunities. After all, isn’t that what these four years have been preparing us for? We’ve learned how to learn, how to adapt, how to build communities from scratch. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again.

So yes, graduation is coming. Instead of seeing it as leaving something behind, I think we should see it as carrying something forward—the connections we’ve made, the growth we’ve achieved, and the person we’ve become. The umbrella of university may be lifting, but we’ve learned to dance in the rain.