{"id":156260,"date":"2023-06-14T11:37:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T09:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=156260"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:50","slug":"graduated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/06\/14\/graduated\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as you can hear when a kettle is soon reaching its boiling point or see on the hostess\u2019 face when it\u2019s time for you to call it a night, you can also feel when adulthood is creeping up on you. Waiting for you outside the entrance of your university, with the hope that you have some plan of where to go next.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

I wrote the sentences above a year ago, when I realised that my constant oscillation between excitement and anxiety may have something to do with graduation approaching. Yet, I was still trying my best to enjoy the last bits of student life; in the same way you fail to enjoy the last day of vacation. Your body might be having a final cocktail on the beach, but your soul is already queuing at the gate.<\/p>\n

Throughout this period, I did some research, and found that an American psychologist, called Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, had studied this transition period when you go from being an adolescent to an adult. He called it emerging adulthood <\/em>and described it as:<\/p>\n

\u201cA life stage in which explorations and instability are the norm. As they focus on their self-development, emerging adults feel in-between, on the way to adulthood but not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing for Erasmus Magazine<\/em> during my last year of studies gave me an outlet to navigate the emotional disorientation of emerging adulthood, preparing me to face my future. But as it had arrived, and my graduation cap was flying over the pavilion, I was struck by the happy faces of my classmates. Suddenly, the entire campus was stained with the memories we\u2019ve shared, and I felt every fiber of my body insisting that I am not ready to leave yet.<\/p>\n

Teary-eyed on the plane home, I engaged in the mental torture of playing Stop This Train<\/em> by John Mayer on repeat while daydreaming about doing my master\u2019s all over again. But by the ninth verse of \u2018We\u2019ll never stop this train\u2019, I decided it was time to take out my headphones. However much I tried to deny it, I realised that even if I could go back, it would never be the same again. Because I am not the same anymore.<\/p>\n

When I got home, I saw that some of my classmates had already posted pictures of the graduation on LinkedIn, with quotes like \u2018Excited for the opportunities that lay ahead\u2019. I smiled at my phone and put it back in my pocket. Maybe I would soon feel the same way.<\/p>\n\n\t

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