Today was the 2007 class of Xavier’s first day of being in the real world. Finals have ended, the upcoming days will be full of celebration, and graduation is just a week away. And here I sit, now out of college for a whole year. I should be ecstatic, proud of my accomplishments over the past twelve months, excited for the following year. And yet, instead, I am envious of the current graduating class. Today they were able to sleep in, go outside and enjoy the bright and warm weather, meet friends and enjoy their new-found freedom – but most of all; they are full of hope for the upcoming year. They are looking forward in anticipation of the next phase of life, the next step in their journey.
Perhaps I am not just envious but bitter. Bitter that things have yet to turn out the way they should. Bitter that I have lost that anticipation of all things new. Bitter in my disappointment that this new year is not as I had hoped.
My bitterness has led me on a search. Here I am, a year graduated and I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life. I suppose I had an idea, I wanted to attend graduate school in psychology and become a professor. For the second year in a row that dream was not fulfilled. Do I believe in signs? Were my rejections into graduate school a warning that I was following the wrong dream? Here I am as a research assistant, perhaps the closest career to my “dream” career without having the PhD that is necessary to become a professor. And here I am, hating my job. Disliking research, disliking the profession, disliking the politics, and the competition.
What in college leads us to believe that we have decided, correctly, on the profession we would like to pursue? I remember distinctly the moment I decided to become a psychologist. I was standing in my bathroom; it was freshman year of high school and I was getting ready to go see the Robin Williams film, What Dreams May Come. I was only 14 or 15, young, naïve, and entirely too self-centered. I looked into the mirror and decided that I wanted to help people. I also decided that since I enjoyed giving advice as well as listening to myself talk, that psychology would be the profession for me. In what other profession could you talk freely and have someone’s complete attention? (I had already ruled out the priesthood since the Catholic Church was not going to change their patriarchal tradition of only male priests during my lifetime.) That moment in the bathroom became a reality when, frustrated with Franciscan University, I decided to transfer to Xavier because “it had a better psychology department.” Only a few questioned my reasons for transferring, but they never mentioned my switch from a communications major to psychology. (They only mentioned the ex-boyfriend at Xavier.)
I enjoyed my psychology classes and was challenged enough to be motivated to complete the degree. Somewhere along the line I had decided to pursue my PhD in clinical psychology. Part of me thinks that it was because I really did like what I was learning and I wanted to be able to continue conducting research and possibly teaching. The other part of me realizes that the desire to teach stemmed from the same desire I had as a 14 year old, I wanted free reign, along with masses of students that were required to listen to me. (I never said I grew out of the self-centered wish for attention.) I also knew that obtaining my clinical psychology PhD came from something more Freudian. I was taught, at an early age (from my parents) that I must strive for the best. The clinical PhD was not only the “best” degree to receive as a psychology major, but it has always held the notorious title as the most difficult graduate program in which to receive acceptance. How could I choose to do anything other than that?
My search has uncovered an interesting revelation – perhaps what I thought I wanted all along is not at all what I want for the future. My bitterness and jealousy towards the graduating class has softened, the envy has waned. Perhaps college, despite its attempts to prepare you for the future, really instead prepares you to begin a search for something more. Perhaps we are all still a little too young and naïve (and entirely too self-centered). Perhaps, instead of college, it is the years after college that prompt the first steps of self-discovery.
