May marks the first anniversary of my college graduation, or, as I said, my adulthood is inevitable and scary. This time last year, I questioned what I wanted, endured the explosion of a close-knit social life, split up ways in a failed situation and tried to scrub stubborn beer stains from my baby blue graduation gown. I remember endless parties, smelling like chocolate but smelling like ashes, we shake, spray but barely drink cigars, all our beer and wine Have done it drink. Now, as I watch videos of teenagers wearing their own robes, I face unwelcome reminders of grass growing on the grave of my college days.

On the morning of graduation, I worked hard to follow the Tiktok tutorial, which talked about how to tie (eventually recruited my roommate to help), and then had a bag of Cheez-its for breakfast. I walked on the stage for eight seconds, waving at the crowd, without a clue, my family took my seat. But none of these grips mattered because my dean blinked at me as we shook hands, and the school’s national anthem sounded better than the Bluetooth speakers through the copper tube.

Even the slightest feast is fascinating when you graduate. 1923 Atlantic The article states that it is just asked “Are you going to start school?” Joyful joy: “It makes sense to start,” explains writer Carroll Perry. “It means the Governor of the Commonwealth comes to the Sheriffs of Williamstown and Berkshire counties, Bell-Crown and Cockade wears Buff cashews and brings an employee. It means wearing your Sunday suit all day.

But all of this can be pierced by reality. In my alma mater, Colombia, I was confused by the chaos of the ceremony as campus protested against Israel’s war in Gaza. (Event eventually was cancelled, and smaller graduation events (my ones) were moved out of campus.) During adulthood, frequent admissions to school meant entering a world that plagued conflict. In 1917, in the pain of World War I, a father wrote a letter to his daughter with graduation: "That is my daughter with sheepskin in my hand, the world where you graduate. It is a world where you are in crisis; a world where you struggle to win a hard effort," he wrote. “No one of us is immune to contribute what we have, our contribution to this effort.”

uncertain It is a word that defines the months of decline in college and beyond. Finding a post-course is tough, especially because of the pressure that choices may always determine your career. Graduate school delayed job search for a few years, but the results may vary. "Now, four years after I've earned my master's degree and PhD, I seem to be permanently unemployed." An anonymous graduate, side job "Ph.D.", complained in 1940. And the pressure with peers, especially financially, never disappeared. A writer who was working as a carpenter had dinner with old college friends, who made more money in a white-collar position than he did. "I think it makes them happy because he learned that my hands couldn't keep pace with their heads," he wrote in 1929.

Any recent graduate will tell you that their heads feel the heaviest after the hat is dropped. The night after graduation, my friends and I sneaked into our freshman dormitory. We recalled four years and wrote a message for future residents of the dormitory in the electric box in the same living room we first met. Then the sun rose. I loaded my life into cardboard and loaded that cardboard into a minivan and then swiped down my window to say goodbye to it all. "So, we open up elementary school students in our lives. Beginning means beginning; it is the beginning of responsibility. He must seize his own opportunity now." "His childhood is over."

Sometime after the victory circle was blurred, I suddenly found myself back home alone. I've been asked What's next? By then, about 20 people, but for the first time, I was forced to really face this problem. I have no answer. I just mourn my childhood.