For roughly 75 percent of Ohio University’s undergraduate population, the fact that there is just one week of school to go before summer begins is no big deal. But as it relates to virtually all of my peers in the senior class, that fact is utterly terrifying. Downright depressing, too.
I understand where my fellow seniors are coming from. I do not, however, share their morose sentiment.
After four years in rural and remote Athens, a tiny town I’ve come to know very well, it just seems time for us to collectively get a move on. We can’t stay here forever. Why make our impending departure more difficult than it has to be?
Whenever the subject of graduation or post-college plans arises in conversation, my friends freak out and demand a new subject. They stomp their feet and yell their objections, acting — ironically enough — as most kids do when summer is over and it’s time to go back to school.
It’s okay to be nervous about life after college. I certainly am, but I feel more excitement about it than anything else.
Throughout their lives, children wish they could be grown-ups. This is our chance!
We control our fates. We decide where we’ll live and what we will do for a living. We get to prove that we can hack it in that dreaded place, the real world.
It’s not going to be easy, I know. Fortunately, though, we’ve been training for the next step every day since we arrived at OU as freshmen in the fall of 2009.
If you had told me then all the things I’d accomplish during my college years, I’d have thought you were talking to the wrong Mark Emery — and I’d probably demand that you purchase my next drink for wasting my time.
I imagine that’s true for most graduating Bobcats. And I imagine it will resonate with each of us a decade from now, as well.
I’m not saying that I don’t love Athens or OU. I do. Together, they make for a place that is fun and friendly, a place where I’ve enjoyed incredible times and made friends with equally incredible people.
I will miss those experiences. I will keep in touch with those friends.
Just as we took a leap by leaving home to come to OU, we must leave what has become our home to greet the next challenge. It’s time for another leap. It’s time to see what we’re made of.
Mark Emery is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University and a former Post reporter.
