junior year
I'm sitting in the lobby of the English building at school, which is blissfully empty since it's one of the last days of finals. After I turn in a poetry portfolio and have a meeting with a professor (about whether or not I should go to grad school), I'll be officially done with my junior year of college. I'm taking an online summer class, a senior seminar in creative writing and publishing, but that's more fun than work. Other than that I have no plans for the summer other than working at my (crappy) retail job and spending time with the boyfriend & friends, hopefully managing a few adventures. I entertained the idea of looking for a summer internship, but when it came down to it I was too damn indecisive and lazy, not to mention that I have no idea what kind of internship I would want (and the idea of unpaid work seems dreadfully unfair to me). This could be my last summer vacation, I suppose.
Junior year was a good one, the best year of college I've had so far. In sophomore year I finished taking the boring required classes, so this past year I got to take a lot more classes that I was actually interested in, including a few creative writing classes. I started getting interested again in poetry after not having written much in a while, and also wrote a few short stories. I won second place in the English department's poetry contest. This year I also started seriously thinking about grad school, which made me feel more hopeful about life after college since I still don't know what I want for a career.
Various things that happened junior year:
- Turned twenty
- Met and got together with my boyfriend Taylor
- Took a lot of creative writing classes and got to know the faculty
- Continued working at the same retail job
- Made friends with some people at my job and started hanging out with them
- Applied to work in the writing center as a tutor next year and got the position (unpaid, but for credit)
- My lifelong best friend Nikki started college at my school
- Another of my best friends, Justine, got married & I was a bridesmaid
This is the first year where I felt like I had something of a place in college. That was the consequence of going to the big state school & living at home in order to save money, instead of going to the prestigious private colleges that accepted me and getting buried in student loans... It meant that my college would be closer to my house than my high school was, that I wouldn't have "the college experience" living on-campus and making friends, that I would often feel like I had picked the boring route and that my life had become stagnant. But the upside is that I saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, met a wonderful guy with whom I am in a happy relationship, took classes with some really excellent writing professors, and stayed close to my friends. I don't regret the decision about where I went to college anymore. Especially now that I'm thinking of grad school, which probably wouldn't be a possibility if I'd already blown $40,000 a year on my bachelor's degree. So, all in all, things are good.
Junior year was a good one, the best year of college I've had so far. In sophomore year I finished taking the boring required classes, so this past year I got to take a lot more classes that I was actually interested in, including a few creative writing classes. I started getting interested again in poetry after not having written much in a while, and also wrote a few short stories. I won second place in the English department's poetry contest. This year I also started seriously thinking about grad school, which made me feel more hopeful about life after college since I still don't know what I want for a career.
Various things that happened junior year:
- Turned twenty
- Met and got together with my boyfriend Taylor
- Took a lot of creative writing classes and got to know the faculty
- Continued working at the same retail job
- Made friends with some people at my job and started hanging out with them
- Applied to work in the writing center as a tutor next year and got the position (unpaid, but for credit)
- My lifelong best friend Nikki started college at my school
- Another of my best friends, Justine, got married & I was a bridesmaid
This is the first year where I felt like I had something of a place in college. That was the consequence of going to the big state school & living at home in order to save money, instead of going to the prestigious private colleges that accepted me and getting buried in student loans... It meant that my college would be closer to my house than my high school was, that I wouldn't have "the college experience" living on-campus and making friends, that I would often feel like I had picked the boring route and that my life had become stagnant. But the upside is that I saved hundreds of thousands of dollars, met a wonderful guy with whom I am in a happy relationship, took classes with some really excellent writing professors, and stayed close to my friends. I don't regret the decision about where I went to college anymore. Especially now that I'm thinking of grad school, which probably wouldn't be a possibility if I'd already blown $40,000 a year on my bachelor's degree. So, all in all, things are good.