Senior-year ennui sets in as future remains uncertain

  Brian Fishman If you want a stock,
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The wind seems a little bit colder this year. And for me, just
another lost, confused, graduating senior, the ever-shortening days
parallel my dwindling days here at UCLA ““ where the warm glow
of learning, and maybe a Bud Light, have taught me just enough to
know that I have absolutely no clue what I want to do with my
life.

Of course fourth-, fifth- and sixth-year Bruins all across
campus can relate. Westwood is undoubtedly a bubble that insulates
inhabitants from many pressures that will become commonplace upon
graduation.

For the aggrieved, halfway through fall quarter seems only baby
steps from the inevitable, the accursed, the unthinkable: the real
world. Merely human, we fear the unknown.

Although the arbitrary division between academia and life beyond
college is often overstated, proximity to this fence makes the
difference alarmingly more striking. While four years at one of the
world’s greatest universities has taught me much, it has
failed to teach me what to do once I slip through the slim membrane
separating life today from life tomorrow.

I remember freshman year, when the “rape trail” had
no lights and a gigantic pit lay between the Dance Building and the
Men’s Gym, when Sproul Hall was home and dorm food was a
drag. I remember a time when everyone I queried replied,
“Don’t worry, you have four years to figure out what
you’ll do after college.”

  Illustration by Grace Huang/Daily Bruin Ha! Ha! What my
friends and relatives failed to mention was that four years at UCLA
flashes by before you even have time to find the Career
Center. Alarmingly, for many Bruins, four, five or six years
at UCLA are simply not enough to point themselves in any of
life’s infinite directions.

Seemingly, four years passed overnight and freshmen Bruins now
look so young. But, it’s only fall quarter, you say.
It’s not that big of a deal, you say. Things will work out,
you say. And you are right; but that is small condolence come June,
when I’d better have a job and a home or at least some idea
of my purpose in life.

American society clearly implies that college years are special,
that admission to a university like UCLA is an esteemed privilege,
that the years we pass here will be some of the best of our lives.
And today, eight months before my final “midnight
yell,” I can’t help but wonder if all the hype was
justified. Do I look at the world much differently today than I did
before my own UCLA orientation session where I decided that, yes
indeed, I would survive here?

Undoubtedly, the answer is yes. But seeing the world
differently does not imply seeing it better. Higher education has
been eye-opening, but not necessarily enlightening. While my
expectation that it could enlighten is unfair, that expectation was
not mine alone.

A plethora of students stumble aimlessly into UCLA’s
hallowed halls expecting direction, only to stumble out four years
later just as directionless, despite being more educated.

I became disillusioned talking to a fellow Bruin at a recent
football game. He claimed he had “learned absolutely nothing
in four years at UCLA.” I began to question, what have I
learned, where am I going and what do I know?

I’ve learned all sorts of facts, and different ways of
thinking, and I’ve met many wonderful people. While all
that is splendid, the prospect of being booted out of the UCLA
bubble makes me look past those victories to wonder whether or not
I have any idea of my purpose in life.

As it turns out, I don’t.

But I won’t endorse my disillusioned friend who thinks
that UCLA has been a complete waste of time. He believes its only
reward is a fancy little diploma and another walk across a
close-cut lawn to “Pomp and Circumstance.” But UCLA has
not been the clean stepping-stone I once expected it to be.

The obvious response to this opinion involves signing away my
soul and avoiding the real world as thousands, perhaps millions,
have done before me: graduate school. But the LSAT is no joke,
Kaplan preparation classes cost almost $1,000 ““ and do I
really want to go to law school anyway?

Graduate school is in many ways the ultimate form of
procrastination; that’s its appeal. Many students, however,
find themselves in a difficult paradox; the only reason they go
graduate school is to avoid working, and the only reason they work
is to avoid graduate school. This is not exactly serendipitous, if
you ask me.

What about traveling? It’s almost legendary; the confused
college graduate spends a year on the road, lives out of his
backpack, aimlessly wanders around and returns to normal life an
independent, invigorated person. That sounds like a good idea!

But, doesn’t that just prolong the inevitable? Will
wandering around Europe really give insight into whether I want to
be on Wall Street chasing cash or on skid row helping others find
it?

A schoolteacher and former Bruin misses “the camaraderie
of college that you just don’t get in the real world.”
Of course, she is right; that camaraderie is something I will miss
as well.

High school was a passing phase with a definite end and a
clearly defined purpose: college.

Today nothing waits; everything has to be pursued. And that is
why graduating seniors are noticing a lot of things around UCLA,
including the cold wind that has been breezing down Bruin Walk.

For us fogies, we shall continue to commiserate. Our time is
coming to a close.

As for freshman who just now are walking into, if not the best,
certainly some of the most interesting years of their lives,
understand that the four long years ahead will speed past. Seize
UCLA for all it’s worth, but don’t expect at the end of
four years to find a personalized life-path. You probably
won’t find one.

But you will find some friends and, maybe, if you’re
lucky, the confidence to say it’s okay to be scared out of
your mind.