The last time I was at the nail salon, I sat in the chair across from one of my favorite nail technicians, talking about winter break and our families. When the topic of college inevitably came up, our conversation turned to graduation, which is quickly approaching for me this upcoming May. I began to tell her about my final semester and my plans for after graduation.

I hadn’t realized how nervous the thought of graduating made me until my nail technician told me to relax my hands. In explaining the next six months of my life and my hopes for the next few years, I had gotten so tense that she couldn’t file my nails. After taking a deep breath and letting my hands go limp, I said something which very likely resonates with a lot of graduating students.

“It’s scary to think about graduating when all I’ve ever known is school.”

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always known exactly what lay ahead of me: elementary school then middle school, to high school then college. Now, college then what? Of course, I have generic ideas about getting a job and preparing to go to graduate school, but these plans have a lot less solidity and direction than I’ve had in the past. 

Five years ago when I visited Northeastern’s campus for the first time, enamored by the city and academic environment I was surrounded by, I told my mom I was going to college here with a confidence I don’t think I’ve had since. Four months away from graduation, I feel nothing but uncertainty about what the future holds. 

To this sentiment, my nail technician replied with the ever-so-overused statement of, “Don’t worry, you still have so much time.” 

With so little certainty about the future, it’s easy to feel like life comes to a screeching halt after graduation. Most of the things that have given our college lives structure and meaning won’t remain the same once the college part comes to an end. Schedules and responsibilities shift, friends move away and we feel an overwhelming urge to figure out exactly what we’re going to do about it now so that we don’t feel the anxiety of anticipating those changes. 

But no matter how hard I’ve tried to come up with a magical way to prepare for how different my life will be after graduation, the reality is that there isn’t one. We have to accept that change is coming, and likely in ways we can’t predict.

I’ll be the first to admit that “going with the flow” is something I’ve never quite been good at. My closest friends will tell you that I am probably the most Type A person they’ve ever met (I’ll never forget the looks of concern I got the time they found me unloading and reloading the dishwasher because the way the dishes were arranged was stressing me out — it was perfectly fine). But in light of my changing status from college student to graduate, I’m also trying to change my status as a self-proclaimed control freak. 

There is a lot that I can’t change about what will happen after graduation, and there’s a lot I can’t plan for. But I can control my attitude about life post-grad. Approaching the coming years with apprehension won’t serve me in making the best of my 20s (or 30s or 40s), nor will it make any of the things I worry about suddenly resolve.

And as much as I love my life as it is right now, I have to remember that what I love about it isn’t the intricacies of being a college student like registering for classes or studying for next week’s quiz. I love what I’ve made of my time in college — writing and learning feverishly, sitting with my friends in my sunny living room for hours on a Sunday and walking around Boston Common looking for acorns to give to the squirrels.

All of these memories are a result of who I am, not my status of “college student,” and I have all the opportunity in the world to continue making more of them after I take off my cap and gown.

It’s important that we recognize our diplomas are not metaphorical death certificates for the people we were as college students, meant to impose a feeling of impending doom about the future. 

No matter how cliché it sounds, graduation really is the start of the rest of our lives, even if we’re not sure what it’s going to look like yet. So, while the anxiety you feel may be incredibly uncomfortable, you can and must confront it with an appreciation for all of the good that has yet to come.

Kara Orsini is a fourth-year health science major and deputy opinion editor for The News. She can be reached at [email protected].