Graduating college is undoubtedly a great accomplishment, but the aftermath? Not so much.
1. The euphoric feeling of having completed college and having a degree is immediately followed by experiencing an ongoing existential crisis as you’re plagued with trying to figure out what else is out there in the world and what you’re going to do with yourself for the rest of your life.
2. Being happy that you’re graduating with a lot of your classmates, but then as each classmate is being called for their diploma, a feeling of apprehension overcomes you as you’re questioning the foundation of all the friendships and connections you’ve made with people, soliloquizing to yourself, “I’m going to miss a lot of you. Will I ever see any of you again?”
3. The unquestionably hedonistic feeling of becoming liberated after surviving the coercive, elitist pedagogy of an institutionally racist, sexist, ableist, heteronormative white supremacist patriarchal, capitalist, institution for four years of your life, but soon becoming frightened by the idea of having to further abandon your culture and assimilate into the white-American, hegemonic system to find a job.
4. Having the agency to actually take your time and figure out what meaning you yearn to garner from life after graduating from college and seeking greater individual purpose, but systemic capitalism continually tries to reel you back into living a monotonous, listless, life-depriving, desensitizing, everyday life which might possibly have you working a 9-5 until you die.