Senior Year
It feels like just a short time ago I was arriving on campus for the first day of orientation, excited to move into Forest Hall and anxious to see what life at Babson would be like. And now, three years later, I’m in the final stretch – my senior year. In this blog, I’d like to parallel a few of the experiences college students and high school students have during their senior years, proving that we share the same anxieties and excitement.
The first thing that comes to mind is the ubiquitous feeling of being in the final year of college which means it’s the last time I’ll attend homecoming weekend as a student, the final time I’ll pick classes, and the last year I’ll get to see my closest friends every day before we go off into the real world. Likewise, high school seniors are experiencing the same anxieties as it’s the last time you’ll get to do many of the same things.
The next thing that comes to mind, which brings its own level of anxiety and ambiguity, is the infamous, yet exciting job search. Coming from a college senior who is going through this process right now, I can tell you it’s just like the college application process. The big questions you ask yourselves as high school seniors about where you want to go to college are just like the ones I’m asking myself now. What do I want to do after college? Where do I want to work? Will I get the dream job I’m searching for? Am I ready to be a real adult?!
Finally, there’s the one aspect of senior year that everyone looks forward to: senior privileges! Once again, you’re the big dog on campus and everyone is looking up to you, so don’t let them down! You’re the one that younger students will come to with questions, whether about school or life. Also, you get to experience the joys of senior week, crossing off things from your bucket list, and having the chance to make that last impression on everyone. Being a senior doesn’t sound so scary anymore, right?
So, as you can see, the experiences that we have as seniors in college are just like the ones that you experience during senior year of high school (you’re just four years younger). While I’ve highlighted a few common paradigms of senior year that can be very overwhelming, don’t forget to recognize the ways you’ve changed and grown from first year to senior year. Now you have a bunch of experiences, support networks, and lessons to follow you into your next step in life, whether that next step is beginning your career or starting your first year of college. Either way, there’s tons of exciting things and endless opportunity awaiting you.