With another year somehow coming to an end, a plethora of graduates will be leaving Idaho State University and moving on to the next stages in their lives, whatever those may be.
Unfortunately, with one more semester left I can’t completely understand what graduates are going through, but with a handful of my friends and coworkers graduating I’m starting to feel secondhand anxiety and excitement on their behalf.
I can’t begin to imagine the thoughts running through graduates’ heads: where do I go from here? Where do I live? What do I want to do with my degree? What can I do with my degree?
While the “real world” can be terrifying, I’m confident in the fact that an ISU education has prepared our hardworking graduates for what’s waiting for them. For some, that means continuing their education through graduate school, either here or elsewhere; for others it means finding a job, starting a career or simply starting a new life.
Our many graduates at “The Bengal” are about to choose an avenue for their futures and I couldn’t be happier to have known and worked with these individuals.
As I plan for my final semester at the newspaper in the fall, I’m having a hard time imagining this job without some of the people who are leaving and have made this experience what it’s been for the past three years.
Still, I’m overwhelmingly excited (and simultaneously nervous) for my friends and their futures, and their graduation preparations have me thinking forward to my own in December.
As a bystander, the immense changes after graduation are hard enough for me to handle. As an actual graduate, those pressures must be even worse.
Finals week always leaves me with nightmares (you know, the ones where it’s the end of the semester and you remember that math class you never attended?) and I’m not even dealing with the additional stresses of job hunting, housing turmoil and a potential big move, all orchestrated around commencement, graduation parties and more.
Not only do graduates deserve a “hats off” for earning their degrees, they deserve another for coordinating such a daunting task while juggling families, finals, friends and countless other obligations.
According to statistics from Complete College America, less than half of students enrolled in a four-year program in Idaho return by their third year. The mere fact that the students walking in this Saturday’s commencement (and those who won’t be walking!) managed to stick it out and earn a degree means that they’ve beat the odds.
On behalf of “The Bengal” I would like to echo the sentiment of congratulations that I’m sure exists all across the university and community to all Idaho State students earning degrees, certificates or any other award acknowledging their hard work and dedication.
Though many graduates (including my own friends and acquaintances) may be leaving ISU and Pocatello as their lives move forward, I hope they’ll continue to feel connected to the university and community they came from.
Nicole Blanchard is a senior majoring in Mass Communication.
Next Post
Engineering students prepare for Baja SAE
Wed May 8 , 2013
Robert Miklos, Cody Martin and Richard England are senior mechanical engineering students working on a vehicle for the Society of Automotive Engineers’ (SAE) competition known as Baja SAE. The event only allows for 100 teams to register to the competition location Miklos, Martin and England are participating at. Baja SAE […]
