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BACK TO THE FUTURE

By Emma Watkinson ⋅ April 17, 2008 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

As the end of the last semester and indeed, the last academic year nears, I find myself thinking about the future, again. Only one more week of classes stands between me and the uncertain, the first venture into the unknown and I cannot help but remember the anxiety over choosing GCSE options, then A levels, labouring over personal statements and university applications. The day I graduated from school. The anticipation of A level results. The embarking upon a new academic path, the challenges that lay ahead.
All the determinants that have lead up to this moment. But that leaves the big question, what now?

We can read the books we are told to read and write the essays we are told to write and go to the classes that were scheduled for us, however, after next week all that will change. Instead of preoccupying ourselves with deadlines, lectures and library books that seem to be permanently on loan, we now have to face the awful task of worrying about our own lives. Am I alone in feeling that somehow things would have resolved themselves before I got to this point? After years of education, following a system that allowed us to be passengers from the age of three until twenty-one, we did not have to trouble ourselves with decision-making. We complained every step of the way about the lack of freedom and choice. Now that the freedom is there for the taking; I have never been so frightened of reaching out. I wonder where the next path will take me. What will we be doing in ten years? Hopefully something fulfilling. If only there was someone to tell us what that is.