I’ve gotten a number of notices from the University lately, informing me that I am, in fact, dangerously close to graduating. My reaction to this apparently inevitable prospect has thus far been both positive and negative.
On one hand, it’s a rather gratifying feeling of accomplishment. And I’ve been looking for something else to hang on my wall for months, so a diploma couldn’t be coming at a better time.
On the other hand, graduating means I will finally have to enter the “real world,” a prospect as horrifying as it is inevitable. “Pish, you’re silly,” people tell me. “There’s nothing at all scary about becoming an adult. Perhaps you’re just realizing that you’re too lazy to contribute to society.” — Or at least, that’s how people sound in my imagination, where everything somewhat resembles a Virginia Woolf novel.
There’s plenty to be scared about in joining this so-called “real world.” Don’t believe me? Well, consider this list of facts about that otherworldly realm, which I’ve culled from my various intelligence sources:
1. You have to get up early in the morning. This isn’t a huge problem for me; I enjoyed getting up early when I was a little kid. Nevertheless, one of the things I’ve realized, looking back on my college days, is that there’s something irrepressibly cool and poetic about being up really late at night. It’s almost awe-inspiring to look at the clock at 3 a.m. and realize, “I’m still awake! It is my duty to keep my silent vigil while the people of this city sleep snug in their beds.” It’s almost like being a superhero, and it’s the closest I’m likely to get without receiving some sort of radioactive animal bite.
2. You have to work on stuff for eight hours at a time. This is a challenge that, at first, didn’t seem too daunting. But considering that the longest class I’ve had to take in college was 2 1/2 hours long and generally followed by a nice episode of “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,” I’m just not so sure I’m up to it. I might need my bosses to go easy on me during my first couple of months on the job. Maybe we could punctuate staff meetings with well-timed commercial breaks?
3. You have to cook for yourself. I understand that my more domestic-minded readers will not be able to relate to this one. But at this point in my life, my culinary repertoire consists mostly of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and its associated variants, like the “peanut butter and lots of jelly” sandwich and the “peanut butter and no jelly” sandwich. I suppose there’s some truth to the statement that one can only learn to cook through trial and error. I’m just afraid that my first experiment is more likely to result in a fiery cataclysm than in anything edible. I’ll probably spend my last weeks here storing up to-go boxes from the dining halls in squirrel-like fashion, to get me through the first few months.
4. No more wearing comfortable clothes every day. This isn’t just the whining of another rebellious, nonconformist youth here. Being relaxed and loose can have a big impact on how one goes about one’s business. Every paper assignment in college that I’ve ever really nailed, I wrote in my pajamas. Sure, plenty of organizations observe Casual Fridays. But my suspicion is that if I really want to be on top of my game, I need to find a place that also has “Bermuda Shorts Thursdays” and “Whatever’s Clean Wednesdays.” These practices are, unfortunately, a good deal less widespread.
5. You have to deal with money. This doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would go beyond the grasp of a college graduate. But we often take for granted how easy it is to make a budget in college. It’s a lot simpler to set financial priorities when you don’t have any money. It’ll be nice to have an income, but somewhere in the middle of trying to figure out what a Roth IRA is, I imagine I’ll think fondly of the days when my financial strategy was “never buy anything” — not to mention that doing your taxes becomes much harder. This year, my taxes probably took all of 10 minutes. You’ve never seen so many zeroes on one sheet of paper.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too worried about transitioning successfully to the real world. After all, a couple trillion people have managed so far in Earth’s history, and there’s no way I’m that far behind most of them. It will be a big change, though. So, underclassmen, take time to appreciate the time you have left. And fourth-years, take heart — turns out there’s a lot you can cook with peanut butter.
Matt’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. He can be reached at m.waring@cavalierdaily.com.
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