At the end of every semester or academic year, students graduate and have to face that scenario that many humorously call “real life.” This term especially scares the college campus population because of its meaning, which is the realization that another stage in their personal development as young adults has been successfully accomplished. Most students work on their plans after graduation during the completion of their bachelor’s degree. However, these plans sometimes change after a certain period of time, especially when more possibilities show up on that spectrum of future decisions. In such an unexpected and unpredictable scenario, one factor does not change regardless of the pass of the time: having to say goodbye to what has been your life for the last four years of your life. Saying goodbye is no easy task.
When considering their future or next move, students find themselves in the situation where two completely different options are on the table. One of these options is continuing their education and enrolling in the next step of higher education. The other option is jumping with both feet into the “full-time job life,” which can also be pretty intimidating. Both of these decisions are freely flying through the minds of those recently graduated students who have to decide, in some cases, to keep investing in their future, observing those student loans reaching six figures, or start paying off that heavy debt that rests on their shoulders. None of these decisions is the right or suitable one for every person. It all depends on where you want to see yourself in the next few years, and if the required monetary and time resources are available for you at that specific time.
Once the academic year is over in May 2021, the life of a large number of Greenville University Men´s Soccer seniors will make a big switch – or maybe not. The NCAA‘s recent decision on adding an extra year to senior students’ eligibility has included another option to their future spectrum. Such decision has provided an extra year to play college athletics to those students whose connection with the sport goes beyond that imposed four-year limit. As a result, a high percentage of current seniors are deliberatively scheduling major-related classes in that semester or starting a master’s program to ensure that possibility is real. In that situation is Matt White, a senior from La Mirada, California, who is nowadays struggling in that nerve-racking process of finding the best option for his future. “My option for next year is either working for my dad back in California or start a master’s program at Greenville University and play one more year,” says White, who is still undecided. There is also the case of David Yakim, a senior from La Palma, California, whose decision is settled. “My plan after graduation is applying for law schools and either be a full-time or part-time student…depending on if I find an engineering job,” says Yakim, whose plans are based on going back home and start his preparation for the “Bar and Patent Bar exams.”
Decisions are to be made in the near future for those students whose graduation is about to be a reality. The question these students are asking themselves remains, “Would I regret not taking the opportunity given?”
Media by Wyatt Moser.
