Pre-Graduation: Looking Back while Marching Forward 

Yearbooks, final exams, summertime hopes, and goodbyes. What’s missing? The cap and gown, of course!

As a tribute to graduates, I set out to understand the mix of emotions surrounding this time. When asked how they felt about graduating, many seniors gave similar responses. They were ready to move on with life. Their tone was casual, even indifferent, as if the moment carried little weight, but that felt more like a surface level answer rather than the full truth. 

In contrast, freshmen were asked the same question about life after graduation. Their responses varied widely. Some saw it as an escape, a chance at freedom, while others feared the unknown ahead. 

For most readers who have likely been through freshman year, it is easy to remember those early dreams. The ideas of who we wanted to become and what we wanted to do felt clear and exciting. Those dreams do not always unfold as planned, but that early optimism still shapes who we become. It acts as a step toward wherever we are meant to go. 

So why do the answers seem so different just four years later? Is it because time reassures us that things will work out? Is it because of a teacher who made us believe anything was possible? Or is it something beyond school altogether? 

Truth be told, talking to seniors who are also close friends of mine, they revealed that though they mask their feelings with a relaxed tone, those same freshman questions live on. They too wonder if life is going to turn out right, if that career might fall apart, if they have what it takes to build a family or run a business. Those unknowns live on, yet they know the time has come to face them.  

One senior explained it this way. We are about to become freshmen again. For some, that is literal in college. For all of us, it is metaphorical in life. The years after graduation are both exciting and intimidating, and it depends on how we choose to see them. Is this the end of the life we have known, or the beginning of something new? 

So, to both the seniors and the freshman, the end is merely the beginning of another start, and every start is just the end of where we aren’t…  yet. 

 Good luck!

Written by: Dristan Groupe

Edited by: Austin Nguyen, Mathias Munoz Gonzalez