There are a number of students on the SUNY Oswego campus who keep looking at the calendar and realize they only flip it one more time before the word “December” is printed in big letters at the top. For some, that means their tenure at this school is ending and they will be walking the stage while the snow is on the ground, rather than the traditional dandelions.
There are many reasons for this. Some people are just finished—they have completed the necessary requirements for college and don’t see any point in hanging around any longer. Some do it to avoid paying an extra few thousand dollars that they technically don’t have to. Some weren’t able to graduate in May due to various problems and are doing so now.
I began school here in the fall of 2011 and am on schedule to graduate in the spring. I have two majors and a minor. One major was technically completed before this semester and the other I could’ve finished this semester. I only have one more class for my minor that I also could’ve taken this semester. So in theory, I could have graduated in December. But I don’t want to.
And it’s not because I’m afraid of the real world and am just taking on another semester because I technically can. It goes way beyond that.
Being a double major and minor, I have had the lovely opportunity to take an armada of different types of classes from different backgrounds. I have taken creative writing classes, journalism classes, history classes, political science classes, broadcasting classes, English classes and more. So I am satisfied that I have had such a versatile class structure while I’ve been here. That is the basis for why I won’t graduate in December.
I love this school. I talk about it all the time. I cannot believe all of the things I have done and opportunities I have taken in my three-and-a-half years here. It has passed my expectations on biblical proportions. And each time I think it can’t get any better, things come up that just might make it so.
The spring semester might be exciting for many ways. I am excited for the classes that I will potentially be taking, and not because they are easy 100-level classes, because they’re not. Some of them are classes that I am not required to take for my majors but I am anyway because they are offered. One of them is a class that examines communications in other countries and sends students to Paris, France over spring break. I have only left the country to go to Canada, I have never been on a plane before, and have always wanted to go to Paris since I was about six years old. An adventure like that would be the perfect ending to my college years. That alone would define my entire philosophy on college: Take the opportunities that are offered and go beyond your comfort zone. For me, both would definitely apply here.
The spring also gives me the time to possibly squeeze one more internship in before I graduate. With a small class schedule, this helps make this possible. There are many opportunities on this campus or near this campus for that.
The spring semester also gives me a window of a few months to do some hardcore job and internship searching, which is quite comforting. I want to leave SUNY Oswego knowing what’s next and not just walk out the door and go wherever the blustery Oswego winds take me.
An undergraduate student has four years. Four years is not a long time. It has gone by astoundingly fast. I want to do as much as I can in those four years because they won’t come again. I’m paying the money and taking the time, but I will take it all because I know what kinds of doors can open at SUNY Oswego.