Surviving Senior Year: The Pre-Post-Grad Crisis

I’m having a pre-post-grad crisis.

By Jenn Inzetta

Which is probably not a term you’ve heard all that often, especially since I’m 90% sure that I just made it up. So let me explain. The symptoms are not all that different from a post-grad crisis, except I’m not actually a post-grad yet. I’m a senior, a few months from graduation and I have absolutely no idea what comes next. And despite my many, many promises that I wasn’t going to worry or care or wonder, I can’t help myself. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it a lot. And I don’t know what to do.

Right about now you’re thinking something like, you and every other 21-year-old out there. And you’d probably be right. No one really knows what they’re doing or where they are going straight out of college. But for the sake of this column I’m going to be the self centered twenty-something the world is always making our generation out to be anyway and I’m going to complain about my problem like I’m the first and only person to ever graduate college.

You’ve been warned.

This idea is something I’ve touched on earlier in this column, but I haven’t really had much time to contemplate it. Last semester was really, really busy. So busy that I almost forgot what college was all about, so much that I forgot how to enjoy myself. But this semester, that hasn’t been the case. Things have calmed down. I’ve calmed down. But all this free time has obviously left me with too much time to think. Because  I. AM. FREAKING. OUT.

I’m a person who likes to be organized. I make lists. I make plans. I write things down on my Google calendar. And here’s the thing, after May 20, there’s nothing written down on my Google calendar. And I keep trying to figure out what should and will be next. Part of me thinks I should try and find an internship for the summer, while another part of me thinks I should head straight into the job hunt and make some money.  And then the part of me that likes spending my summer vacation tanning on the beach and sipping fruity drinks by the pool thinks that I should give myself a break, take the summer off, and worry about it in the fall. I’m applying to a few grad school programs for my masters in publishing, and the thought of starting those in the fall makes me really, really want to take up that third option. But I haven’t made a decision yet, and I’m not sure when I will. Because as much as I love the idea of having a plan, I’m also completely terrified of making the wrong one.

And so that’s my pre-post-grad crisis, which really isn’t all that different from the post-grad crisis I will no doubt be having in a couple of months. I guess I just wanted a head start. But hey, I have always been an overachiever.

You in the same boat? Need to commiserate with a fellow stressed out senior? Follow Jenn’s trials and tribulations of her last year in college right here.