By Sarah Moomaw, News Staff

Caps and gowns, parties and cakes, words of congratulations and questions of next steps have filled my life since the beginning of May.

But I didn’t graduate.

Northeastern’s commencement was three weeks ago, and at that point I had to say goodbye to roughly half my friends from the last four years.

Since then, I’ve watched former classmates, camp friends, random acquaintances and family friends do the same.

What might be hardest – and weirdest – has been watching my two childhood best friends graduate. For the first time in our lives we are in completely different places, and I don’t mean physically.

We went to the same preschool, but after that it was three elementary schools, three middle schools, three high schools and finally three colleges. Now, they are job hunting and planning huge moves while I have another year in Boston.

At coffee dates and around the dinner table, they joke about being unemployed. I may be home for the summer, but I have a fall job lined up so technically I’m not. They are questioning paying bills and rent, I’m not.

I have no advice to offer or fears of my own. I am still a student and they are now “real” people. But Northeastern is a five-year school and we couldn’t ask for anything else.

One of my best friend’s father said, “I can’t congratulate you yet, can I? I guess it can be an early congratulation.”

I wouldn’t want to have graduated – I couldn’t fit Northeastern’s greatness into four years.

Watching them has made me excited to graduate next year, but it’s just strange that it’s something we aren’t all doing together.

Now it’s the summer before my senior year but the beginning of the rest of their lives.

My life is still planned – roughly six weeks separate me and a Dialogue to Argentina and then it’ll be back to the grind of the fall semester.

Theirs could change with a phone call or email.

Next year, that will be me, and right now it feels like I’ll be waiting in anticipation alone. But that’s false – I will have all my Huskies who haven’t already left my side and many more who will say goodbye to me as they look to their fifth year.

Three weeks ago their Facebook statuses and tweets ranged from those rejoicing about having a fifth year to wishing they were graduating.

At the time I was in France, not speaking French, and wasn’t aware I’d care.

But in a sense, I do. I feel different. I feel left out. I’m not doing something all my non-Husky friends are.

Then I realize they must think the same thing about our co-ops and resumes.

In five years, I’ll have been abroad twice, completed three full co-ops, participated in a ton of on-campus extracurricular activities and taken a full course load.

The Northeastern way is to overachieve and graduate with a strong resume that is something not everyone has. Every school has its “thing” and this is ours.

We get a fifth year without being super seniors while everyone we graduated high school with enters the real world or goes to graduate school.

We shouldn’t thank Northeastern for the extra year, but for the experiences we’ve had that give us the extra year, because eventually it’ll be our turn to walk across a stage.