By Katie Sears

It’s that time of year: College graduation. For three and half years all you’ve wanted to do is get as far away from campus and school-related responsibilities as possible; now you’re crying yourself to sleep worried that the ‘real world’ might be a little bit too real for you. Staying focused in school while simultaneously trying to figure out the rest of your life seems damn near impossible, and no amount of ‘You can do it!’s from mom will help.

If it makes you feel any better, we’re all in the same rickety boat.

Finding a job is a Catch 22.





You’re trying to find a job so that you can make money, but you need money to get to the job. Moving out, storing your stuff, and finding a new place to live all require a significant amount of cash..cash that you probably should have started saving as a freshman, but instead blew on BeatsByDre headphones and 3am Taco Bell runs. Student loans have to be paid back. Like, now.





Financial aid is great while you’re in school, but the day you graduate marks the day you will forever be indebted to the government and to your university. You realize you may never, ever see your college friends again.

It seems like everyone you know is moving to a far-away state, country or continent. The friendships you’ve fostered over the last four years will abruptly end, and it’s one of the saddest things about being a senior.



Senioritis.

Imagine the senioritis you felt in high school and multiply it by ten million. Then add 40. I wouldn’t wish the last five weeks of senior semester on my worst enemy.



Final Exams.I’m not just talking about the exams during finals week that cover the last semester; I’m talking about CapStone classes, major field tests and other exams that will likely determine the rest of your life, like the MCAT, PCAT and the bar exam. It’s even worse when the test costs money. I thought paying to take a test in a classroom was called tuition?



Not being confident about your degree.

That moment you realize you actually hate your degree and it’s not what you really want to do. And then the moment you realize you are really passionate about your degree and don’t want to work in any other field. The daily back-and-forth is exhausting.



You have a lot of stuff. And only one car.

While you’ve spent the last three years decorating your home to better resemble the one you left behind, you never really considered the massive amount of space these things take up. Combine that with the fact that you only have one car, and moving becomes a lot more daunting than it already was.



Your dream job most likely won’t be your first job.

You start accepting that your dream of changing the world and becoming one of Forbes’ 40 under 40 might have to wait a couple of years. Suddenly, just being an assistant doesn’t sound so bad if it means you’ll have a paycheck at the end of the month.



Time is running out.

There are still a million things you haven’t done on campus/in town/ in your state and suddenly you want -no NEED- to do all of them, like that popular hike you passed up on because you were hungover or that weird restaurant that sells avocado-flavored ice cream. FOMO starts to seriously set in at this point.



All. The. Time.