Don't believe the hype, being a senior is hard

Over my freshman, sophomore, and junior years of college, all I heard about was the coveted senior year.

After three years of sleepless nights, 20-page research papers, weekend Finite midterms and endless cups of caffeinated beverages, you finally earned a carefree and wild senior year before you jet-set off into the real adult of unemployment, mortgages and disappointment.

But, in my fourth year at IU, I’m not raging at the bars Thursday through Saturday nights.

I’m not looking at my planner on a Monday night, yelling, “YOLO!” and drowning in a box of Franzia.

I’ve barely even skipped a class.

Instead, I’m working at a newspaper that publishes five days a week, taking classes I don’t enjoy to complete a degree I’m not sure I’ll ever use, and using the free time I have to do outside work for those commitments.

Basically, senior year is not what I was promised. Go figure.

Now, you probably think this column is bound to be a dumb rant by an overprivileged and ungrateful white man who should just shut up and appreciate he’s getting a university education.

That’s exactly what this column is, and I’m embarrassed.

Because if there’s a way to shut up and be grateful, I have yet to discover it.

Here I stand, a prime example of the “Me! Me! Me!” generation to which everyone claims I belong. 

So maybe I’m writing this to get a little bit of anger out of my system.

Maybe this is just a more public way of venting about my issues.

But maybe it can be something more.

I’m sure I’m not the only IU senior out there having a rough time of it.

I hope in writing this little unthankful rant someone else out there will realize it’s never going to be all it’s cracked up to be.

So here’s what I plan to do moving forward as a senior in my last few months at IU.

I’m not going to live this year like it’s already over.

As slowly as time seems to move when you’re studying or writing papers, I know I’ll be graduating before I can say, “How do I adult?”

I’m not going to beat myself up every time I hear people talking about all the interviews they’ve lined up or all the job offers they’ve received.

Because chances are they’re secretly just as scared and miserable as I am.

There might not be a senior support group where we can hold hands and talk about how scary it is going to be as an adult with a college degree, but we’re all going to be
in that boat.

Eventually, we’re all going to have to dive in and accept that real life is just around the corner.

And guess what? It isn’t going to be a walk in the park anymore.

­— wdmcdona@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Dane McDonald on Twitter @W_DaneMcDonald.