Graduation: Pivoting Between Past And Future
The definition of graduation ranges from the high intensity test-taking environment for some and the low-key socializing and partying for others.
In any case, graduation is a period of reflection, regrouping and prediction. Ask any graduate what they were thinking as they walked across the stage to accept their diploma and the answer will not only be a look back at their experiences, but a revelation of the impending future.
As time hastens toward my own graduation, I find it easy to daydream about the first time I walked through the doors at West Valley and searched the lost expressions and panicked faces of unfamiliar students for answers.
These four years of maturing from adolescent to adult by the influence of people, places and events have shaped my life like nothing else could have.
Counselors like Barb Hahto, who never stopped nagging me to search for my ideal college, questioned what I would do afterward and took the time to care that it was the best decision for me. Stephen Warren’s detailed chemistry illustrations, Bob Johnson’s cynical approach to calculus functions and Marguerite Munk’s abstract philosphical discusssions will flow through my mind for years to come.
Teachers, whose lessons on humility, creativity and determination, will fill the pores of my memory. Frustrations with family, like the day my stepmother and I got into an argument about the laundry, or when my mother wouldn’t let me stay out past 11 p.m. were later resolved and I found myself understanding their logic.
Finally, my friends who fought hard in one last battle about who would pay for what at prom and made up before time cut the ties of dependency. Of all the images graduation conjures, it is the images of the people who have crossed my path that I remember the most.
Graduation also serves as the pivotal point between the former life and prospective destination, swinging from retrospection to foresight, which makes viewing the past and the future simultaneously possible.
Graduation is the interval in which to fine-tune the little inconsistencies in life which cloud judgment. It is a period which enables us to learn to control frustrations and deal with deficiencies with school, work, friends, significant others and family.
Now is the time when I ask myself who I am, where I am going and what I will do with myself once I arrive there. Being a freshman is not unlike the aimless caterpillar wandering across the greenery of a tree. The next two years are the counterpart of a metamorphosis and the adult butterfly is the graduating senior focusing on the search for the perfect flower to land on.
Choosing to join the Army reserves as a junior in high school, I had many anxieties about the occurrences which would take place at basic combat training. When I arrived at Fort Jackson, S.C., my fears and anxieties about discipline came to a zenith. However, once I started learning lessons on rifle marksmanship, grenades and first aid, I found that basic training was similar to life, in that it helps to focus on procedure in order to make it down the road to graduation.
Looking ahead in anticipation of going to college in Arizona, I find myself pondering the adventures which will unfold and their resulting consequences.
Questions constantly come up in my mind: What happenings will shape my character? Who will I meet and how will they affect me? Where will my ultimate destination be? When will I win the Nobel Peace Prize?
Although there is no way to predict the consequences of my actions, I know that through keeping my mind and the doors to opportunity open, my life will be a noteworthy and majestic adventure.