By Hannah Lennon
I’m really scared; I’m not afraid to say that much. With the past year and a half having been filled with uncertainty, I relied on school to be my constant. I’ve sat in classrooms almost every day for the large majority of my life; it’s rather daunting to know that May 2022 will be the last time I can say that I’m a student. May 2022 will be the last time I get to see my friends every day, even if it’s just in passing. May 2022 will be the last time I can get student discounts. May 2022 will be the last time I roll out of a twin xl bed and get ready for the day. May 2022 will be the end of the only thing I’ve ever known.
Being a student has been my life-- and I'm not just saying that to be dramatic, I'm one-hundred percent certifiably serious. Except for the first few years of my life spent in daycare and pre-k, I've gone to school. And even when I was in toddler world without homework, all of the adults other than my mom were Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. something or other. The school structure is the only way I've ever structured my life. I feel weird calling professors by their first names, how on earth do I address a superior in the workplace?
I don’t know what my life will look like past May; it could be heaven, hell, or someplace in between. I could have my dream job in New York City, I could settle into an apartment with friends just outside of Boston, or I could be back in my hometown and crossing my fingers, wishing, waiting, hoping, praying for a job offer. I want my life to be great, but how do I know what great will be when I don’t know how not to be a student? In the words of Amy March from Little Women, "I want to be great or nothing." I simply cannot settle for waiting for my life to begin; I want to do something with my life, but I never learned how.
Schools teach all kinds of things. I know basic math, I know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, I know how to play the trumpet, and I know that the green light that Gatsby reaches for symbolizes the American Dream. Schools teach those things as if they're the most important things I'll ever learn. But the truth is, a lot of what I've learned seems so pointless now. I don’t know how to pay my taxes. I don’t know how insurance works. I don’t know how renting or leasing apartments work. I don’t know how to talk to mechanics so that they don’t try to sell me things that don’t need fixing. I don't even know why I have a credit score or how to check it. How could I have been learning for so long, yet I don’t know how to live?
Teachers and professors talk about the "real world" as though they’ve prepared us for it. One of my professors teaches classes at 8 and 8:30 in the morning because they’re “preparing us to wake up early once we get to the real world.” Well, I work up early for my K-12 education, at 5:45 am to be exact, and I’ve been waking up early in college for work and practice. The real world certainly has to be more than waking up early, because if it’s just that, then I’ve been in the real world since I’ve been out of the womb. That isn’t the real world, though. And it’s safe to say that I’ll never know what all of my teachers and professors meant by the real world until I get to it myself. I’ve been taught how to hike and now that I’m at the top of the mountain, it’s time to jump off of the cliff, even though I don’t know how to land.
I’m scared to graduate and leave the only thing I’ve ever known. I want it to be great, but who knows?