Mom and dad I graduated, now what?

MOM AND DAD
I GRADUATED
Now What?

By Neli Lalanne

I am leaving the office early. Meg, my interior decorator insisted on seeing me around 1:30ish, apparently she found the perfect theme for my bedroom, an African décor with a mystical flair to it. I step into my Escalade and start the motor, as I am pulling out of the parking space both my car phone and my mobile start ringing, one to a reggae beat the other imitating a melody from “the sound of music”, after making a mental note to change the moronic tone, I repress a smile and pick up my car phone. It’s Mary, my helper, she wants to know if she should start dinner soon since I’m coming home early; home, a pretty house with high ceilings and large windows perched on a hill overlooking the ocean. I tell her not to worry about fixing anything for the rest of the week as I am dining out with Thomas tonight and flying to the Greek islands tomorrow for an improvised yet much needed mini vacation.

When I wake up from this particular dream I face a completely different reality. One where I am graduating in May and haven’t the faintest clue of where life is going to toss me next. Rather ironic isn’t it? We grow up hearing that there’s a certain pattern to follow if we wish to achieve success: High school, college, great job; so we go for higher learning. We study frantically to obtain decent scores on the SATs; we fill out numerous college applications and chew our nails while waiting for the verdicts. By the time we get accepted we’ve finished what’s left of our nails (and cuticles), we then have to deal with cruel midterms, massive term papers, sadistic finals and teachers who took vows to make your life as miserable as theirs so take attendance when you are not present and make time to word count your essays. But so far it’s ok, we trust the system, we’re in University, we’re on the right track. We go through our first years rather confident in what the future holds in store for us. In a search to find the perfect major, one, which appeals to us and is equally lucrative we switch from one field of study to another maybe once or twice.

We of course hear horror stories here and there about college graduates who don’t get hired upon graduation and end up over-worked and underpaid. We hear those tales but they only begin to wear tangible meaning when we are 7 months away from graduation and realizing that life ‘post- commencement’ might not turn out the way we envisioned it in our fantasies. What about the pattern? High school, then college (private and very expensive), automatic success, right? Wrong, the system has flaws, interestingly enough when handing out the stack of over-detailed paper work to us, the Admissions office forgot to include a contract securing dedicated students a lavish life upon completing a degree.

As the pressure rises with every unreturned phone call to potential employers, I consider the frightening possibility that the college diploma I’ll receive in May could end up being nothing more than a white piece of paper with my name on it stating that I’ve fulfilled a number of academic requirements. A piece of paper I may hand to mom and dad who will probably hang it on their living room wall, proof that their daughter is now officially a ‘college graduate’, pompous title which sounds impressive but carries no concrete guarantees. When thinking about it, the bigger challenge is not obtaining the diploma but rather using it as a weapon to break down the many obstacles, which are bound to come our way.

From now until May, what’s left to do is getting prepared, gathering up courage and tightening belts. Although I am sometimes terrified to my very soul when reflecting on tomorrow, I refuse to become a statistic, one of the many whom the alleged so well crafted system failed. Now I may never drive an Escalade or live in a posh neighborhood but I certainly did not take out so many loans, stayed up so many nights, and dedicated so many semesters of my existence to school to end up just ‘surviving’.

After taking a brief yet frightening hiatus, my legendary optimism and the overflowing confidence which since my freshmen year constituted the foundation of my character stopped playing hide and seek in my mind so I closed my eyes and while fully aware that I very possibly was setting myself up for disappointment I visualized the future, 10 years from today a house on the a hill…Some things I guess never change…