Message from a graduating senior, part II

Like most IU students, I spent Sunday in recovery mode. Little 500 will do that to you.

I was sprawled out on the couch when I leaned over and asked my roommate, “Sam, what are we doing with our lives?”

My roommate pulled his face out of his Chipotle burrito and responded with the wisest thing I’d ever heard him say.

“We’re enjoying it,” he replied.  

That’s when it hit me, albeit four years too late.

Again, like most students, a good portion of my college career was spent worrying. I worried about LSATs, I worried about finals, I worried about my fraternity and I worried about Maurice Creek’s legs.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret, something I recently found out — nothing we do in college really matters, at least in the long run.

Sure, your GPA will help you land your first job. Or it can help you secure a seat in a graduate program. Likewise, the connections we make in college can certainly help.  

But after you graduate, no one will really care about where you went, what you studied or how you performed in the classroom.  

So, in the words of my roommate, just enjoy it.

Let me emphasize that in no way am I saying “don’t try” or advocating laziness. But I am saying not to worry.

I’ve come to realize, that, if you just try your best — the rest will fall into place.

This is a key, elementary belief we need to be reminded of. Even in college. Even after college. Just try your best, and the rest will fall into place.

You can stress about upcoming papers if you want. You can lose sleep over presentations and finals — I know I have. However, stressing over these issues is a choice — and a bad one at that.

All you can do is prepare yourself and try your best. If you do that, you should have nothing to stress about.

So, try to make good decisions and learn from poor ones. I am convinced that this is what college is really about.

But, more importantly, try your best to enjoy your time here.

Besides, we’ll have plenty of real-world problems to stress about in a couple of years — like tax forms, student loan repayments and only having two-day weekends for the rest of eternity.

So, until then, enjoy college problems — like being upset when Jimmy John’s is running late or worrying about whether or not your Instagram picture will get a respectable amount of likes.

­— awcohn@indiana.edu