Dear Spill It,
It is now the fourth week into my senior year and I can confidently say I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. It feels like every time I talk with friends, bon with other senior acquaintances or sit in a 400-level class, it’s a subtle competition of who is working the hardest at graduating with prospects in this world. Every conversation turns into taking turns sharing what you’re doing, where you’re going, and what connections you have. And I’m sure I sound just as confident as anyone else when I share my situation aloud, but in my head, it’s just hopes and dreams riding on an incomplete application to this, a half written email to so-and-so, and thirty visits to the registrar, my advisor, and student account services. I can’t help but feel somewhat tricked by the whole idea of undergrad, to pursue an education in something I loved, spend four years working toward so many things so I can have options when I graduate, and then I’m about to graduate and I’m no more certain about anything than I was graduating high school. I guess I’m just wondering if it’s only me, it can’t be though… right?
From,
Staggered Senior
Dear Staggered Senior,
In moments of imminent transition, it is easy to feel that these are the most important decisions you will ever make, and it is easy to feel that you are the only one who feels isolated by the weight of those decisions. You find yourself, in your own words, having absolutely no idea what you are doing. The secret is that you are not, in fact, alone, and that these decisions are not life or death — regardless of how deeply uncertainty scares you.
What makes this difficult, however, is the tendency toward “Social Peacocking” that seems all too common at our lovely institution of Lewis & Clark. I use Social Peacocking to describe behavior where an external cue is given to indicate something about the person for group approval, even if it may not be entirely accurate. For members of your senior class, this peacocking emerges as comments about their after-graduation plans. These students act like a male bird signaling his sexual prowess while simultaneously displaying his dominance to other male birds. Like the mating rituals of exotic fowls, your peers not only show their academic achievements, but one-up each other in a display of intellectual power. As you say, it is a subtle competition.
Although they are confident in their approach, it is safe to say they are just as clueless about their future as you are. The tough part is believing in that confidence. The truth is that you have everything and more than you need to succeed, and that includes not being fully sure about where you are going after school. Discovery is part of the transition, not a side effect of it. Although having a set plan is what we are taught we need, it is not the be-all, end-all.
Sincerely, Noah-Knows-All
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