Making a Transition to the Real World

Author: Alison Hertel

Walking across campus this morning, enjoying the warm weather (finally) and the blue sky (finally), I realized that this is it. In less than three weeks I'll be wearing a cap and gown and receiving a diploma with the rest of my class (hopefully under more auspicious weather than last year's graduation — I'm hoping for 65 degrees and sun).

I don't have a job, but neither do most of my friends. We find solidarity in one another's unemployment. I'm learning to accept uncertainty and even embrace it. What else can I do? It's impossible to spend too much time thinking about and looking for jobs when you have three final papers due on Friday.

When I graduate I'm going to go home and figure it out. Some of my best family friends are already employed. That's probably a strong description for the guy who's going to be a ski-bum somewhere out West next year. But, as I said to my mother in a moment of despair, "at least he knows what he's doing next year."

There are a lot of things about Middlebury I will miss. Living on the same hall as most of my best friends. Always having someone to talk to (about anything). Ordering late night pizza styx. McCullough dance parties (not that we've had any lately). Hamlin brunch (omelets made to order: need I say more?). The view of the mountains. A&W on a warm spring day. Midnight breakfast. Free Cone Day (Okay, I know they have it in other places, but after this year when will I have the time to go three times in one day?). The equestrian team (especially road trips).

But I'm also excited to move out of a dorm and into an apartment, start earning some money and live in a place where some level of anonymity is possible. Sometimes while walking around campus I realize it's time to move on. Here are three instances of "you know it's time to graduate when …."

Number One: I'm a tour guide, and on recent tours I've started to feel like an old lady. As I show a dorm room in Battell, I respond to concerns about the size of the rooms by saying, "Well, when I was a first-year, this dorm wasn't renovated yet. It had cinder block walls. And I still liked it."

Number Two: I am a member of one of the last classes to remember (and truly appreciate) the music of Vanilla Ice. I can't conceive of a childhood in which I didn't own the tape of a tall blond rapper with shaved eyebrows.

Number Three: When I go shopping, I run into Williams Sonoma and look at the pots and pans and household appliances. Once, a saleswoman tried to sell me a $300 mixer. Do I look like someone who should own an industrial size Kitchen-Aid mixer?

Sometimes I scare myself. Maybe 22 is time for a quarter life crisis. To sidestep the crisis, I'm going to offer up a quote from my quote book. Lane Frost, the late world champion bull rider, said, "Don't be afraid to go after what you want to do, and what you want to be. Don't be afraid to pay the price." That is advice I'm going to try to take with me into the uncertain post-graduation world.

In a year's time, I'm hoping that you'll be looking me up on Midd Net. What will I be doing? I'm not sure, but here's to trying to make it something interesting. Cheers.