Alumna (Graduated Student)
Four months and a day ago, I graduated college. The lingering global pandemic did put a damper on traditional festivities, but the school managed to hold an in-person event. The president of the school called an assortment of student groups to stand: veterans, first-generation students, honors students, and more. He then called everyone about to receive a degree to stand, said a few words, then left the stage. A slideshow of submitted photos and computer-read names proceeded. I sat with my family and waited through hundreds of them, some familiar, some I'd never seen before, counting Jones' and Smiths' until my smiling photo and mildly witty bio flashed across the jumbotron for a few moments. A little less than two months later, in early July, I enrolled into graduate school at the same university. Those classes start up in just two short weeks from this upcoming Monday, yet the reality that my undergraduate experience is over hasn't fully settled in yet. In part thi...