The Three Year Plan: The Pain of Declaring Graduation

By Ross Zelen on February 13, 2013

A close up of the oranges from the Goleta Orange grove directly next to UCSB

The countdown has officially begun. 4 months and counting until this poor schlub will be dragged out of Isla Vista. I’ve promised that I will only go under my own terms: kicking, screaming and dancing. There will be so much dancing the weekend of graduation.

Coming back to Winter Quarter was understanding the inevitable. College is going to end, and it is going to end sooner than I ever imagined. Now that we are more than halfway through Winter Quarter, I’m beginning to want to put my feelings into words.

About how the three years flew by faster than I ever expected.

About how sometimes I find myself reliving a freshman memory, or feeling wide-eyed on campus after discovering something new.

About feeling the stress of a previous midterm or final when I find myself in the same seat in the library just a few weeks later.

About seeing people you have not seen since freshman year and feeling like you are meeting them all over again, since everyone is always growing and changing.

My favorite feeling: discovering something truly amazing in a spot I never knew existed, on campus, on a walk to Sands or on a quick bike ride in Goleta.

Some new discoveries are the orange groves on Hollister (seen in the picture above), the amazing view of the early morning sunrise from the area near Bren Hall and the dungeon like rooms in the library that are perfect for taking over with a dozen of your closest study partners.  After so many fun weekends, so many good times and a handful of conversations that remind me how special people I get to live with truly are, I fail to understand why I wanted to leave.

The real world is closing in, but it is not a darkness that ends the show. transition to a new sequence of life to be lead.Life is about choices. But, in college, choices are not permanent. One can change their majors, their living situations, their hair, and nothing will change about their integral self.

It is what we do that defines us, and it is how we act in hopes of doing what we strive for that allows us to feel the sense of contentment that allows us to sit back on a glorious Sunday and enjoy the sunshine. But too often I forgot that sometimes I was allowed to enjoy the sunshine just because, even if I did not always earn it. That is my character flaw, and that is my great undertaking for 2013.

Try to conquer your goals, your passions and your deepest desires. Reach up high, try to leave this campus a little better than you found it. Drink every drop of the experience here, and do not fell guilty for utilizing every resource UCSB offers you. Because after all is said and done, the moment that you click “Declare Candidacy” your future life becomes that much more real.

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