You can battle the quarter-life crisis

The idea of the midlife crisis is fairly common ““ complete
with stereotypes about trading in your practical car for a red
convertible, and perhaps joining a gym or purchasing a hairpiece.
But there is a crisis that comes much sooner that no one talks
about ““ the quarter-life crisis.

The quarter-life crisis hits the majority of seniors at the
beginning of their last quarter, when they are faced with the
realization that there is no logical next step to their plans.
Junior high to high school, high school to college, college to
“¦ workforce? Grad school? Parents’ house?

My crisis actually hit fall quarter ““ a bit earlier than
expected ““ when I visited a friend who is two years older
than I am, and who has a husband and a baby. Upon leaving her
house, I spiraled into a surreal panic, overwhelmed with the
options after graduation and desperately trying to figure out how
much of an adult a 21-year-old is supposed to be.

Leaving college is a transitional period and everybody takes it
at his or her own pace. I have friends with children of their own,
and friends who have yet to move out of their parents’ house
for the first time. I get invited to my friends’ weddings,
but I ask my mom to make my orthodontist appointments. Half of the
adults I meet say that life after graduation is wonderful, while
the other half warns me never to leave the safety of being an
undergrad.

I have to believe that how quickly you change, and how happy you
are with your decisions has a lot to do with how satisfied you are
with what you’ve accomplished so far and how exciting the
future seems.

Thankfully, the rest of you can benefit from my premature panic
attack. 1) Do all the things you wanted to get done in college so
that you can leave without regrets. 2) Make future plans that
excite you. Don’t wait until spring quarter when you realize
you don’t have any more URSA enrollment appointments to start
contemplating the question. Begin your crisis early.

First, start recalling the things you wanted to accomplish when
you got here. Become the most popular person on campus? Check. Have
your picture taken with Chancellor Carnesale? Check. Study abroad
without actually doing any studying? Check.

Also, get some practical things done for which you will thank
yourself later. For example, figure out whose office hours you need
to go to every week so you don’t have to get your most recent
baby-sitting client to write you a letter of recommendation.

And while you work on crossing possible regrets off your list,
you should also start figuring out what you want to do next year.
There is a lot of pressure to begin grad school right away, but
most grad school applications were due this week, so if you
haven’t applied, you might want to consider postponing it for
a year.

It is also not necessary to take the practical office job. You
will never be more mobile than you are in your early 20s, so take
advantage of it and do something that will be a lot harder to do in
10 years ““ like picking up and moving to a foreign country to
teach English, or applying for that competitive fellowship at the
San Diego Zoo (I am allowed to make cracks about the San Diego Zoo;
I am a member.)

Take my advice and panic now while you can still do something
about it ““ as opposed to next quarter, when your options will
be more limited. And pretend the option of returning to the job you
had in high school is not an option at all.

Davis is a fourth-year communication studies student. E-mail
her at [email protected]. Send general comments to
[email protected].