Running wide open

Life right now is indeed an adventure.  Sometimes I will be trudging through the mundane, and other times I find myself sprinting just to keep up with traffic. Poor example maybe, but let me explain.  Just last week I was in a spot, forcing myself to study, feeling pretty typical of what college life tends to be.  Yesterday, however, was nothing of the kind. 

As internships, career possibilities and life continues to unfold around me, huge changes in my life are happening incredibly fast.  Life up to this point has been very predictable.  I will be in school forever.  Graduation always felt like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you are running towards it, but it doesn't ever seem any closer. My plan of study, up until yesterday was this.  15 credits (5 classes) left.  Internship this summer, one more semester of school.  I was thinking of taking some classes online over the summer, then coming back to Purdue in the fall to finish up remaining credits, perhaps working part time.  Things were starting to wrap up, but I still had a fair amount of time before making real decisions.  I met with my adviser, and as she analyzed the classes I had taken in my previous major, she concluded that I could use those to cover two of the elective classes that I needed to take.  This leaves me with 9 credits left, and I can do all of them online.  So, instead of one more full semester of college,  I am done with Purdue at the end of this semester, which is quickly approaching.  I am moving out, and will not have to be on campus at all after the semester.  I will take an online class this summer, then two in the fall.  Where I won't technically graduate, I will be working full-time, or nearly full-time starting, in 2 months.  It is an incredibly surreal feeling that I'm sure every senior goes through.  I have been in school for 17 years,  graduating high school was cool because you could now buy subway for lunch and go outside between classes, but it was still school.  Now I will be set out in a new environment that I am in no way used to.

Have you ever had the experience, sightseeing or whatever, where you have to go through a tunnel or something that blocks your view right up to the end?  You are walking, all is normal, nothing extraordinary, but when you open the door and step out, the world opens up around you and seems too big to comprehend.  Yeah that's what happened. I realize that I am probably idealizing graduation just a tad, but to me, again, it's a whole new world.