Graduate's long summer followed by road of life

Published: Monday, September 28, 1998

Monday, September 28, 1998

ALUMNA: Being adult redefines financial, spiritual independence

It's September again, and three glorious summer months have yielded to the impatient autumn with barely a fight. All through my childhood, this time of year simultaneously meant desperation and exhilaration; I was desperate in my scramble to make the most of my last weeks of freedom and yet exhilarated by the idea of starting school, planning my first-day wardrobe, figuring out who I would sit next to and who would go out with whom.

After starting at UCLA, well, let's just say I got used to the idea of waiting almost a full month after Labor Day for school to start. By the end of September, in fact, I was itching to get out of Mom and Dad's house and move back up to Los Angeles with my friends. All of my high school pals were already off to another year, and September really began to get boring. I'll be honest - it is possible to have too much time and too little to do, and at that point, even the prospect of homework starts to sound appealing, if not at least time-consuming.

So now another year has gone by, another summer. In July, I called University Records System Access (URSA) to get my spring grades and waited agonizing weeks until she finally calculated my cumulative GPA. I moved all my books and notes to their rightful places (home or trash), and this time, I decided to get a "real" for-the-summer job in Washington D.C.

Those sun-filled months have just flown by (especially since they have been observed through an office window). Before I know it, here I am again, facing another September.

But this time is different. Surrounded by tons of other people my age, most of whom are UCLA students like myself, I feel a sense of camaraderie, until I notice they are all doing something that I no longer do - they are registering for classes. My roommate walks around quizzing me on the best and worst English professors. Co-interns slam down the phone with frustration or joy after a typically impersonal bout with good old URSA. I, on the other hand, am staring at my first UCLA Alumni Association newsletter. What has happened?

While everyone else calculates their units and chooses good general education classes to take, I am keeping close watch over the hundreds of employees who roam these halls, adults shuffling around in nylons or ties and dress shoes, well into their 30-year careers, adults whose ranks I am supposed to join in a matter of weeks. There is no pause after Labor Day before life begins - the day after Labor Day is life.

As you might imagine, I have been sighing a lot lately.

Closely following the realization that I am not going back to UCLA as an undergraduate student ever again comes the thought that I am, perhaps, an adult, which then brings me to the discovery that my friends must also be adults. My roommate is starting law school. Several other friends have sold their souls to investment banking or consulting firms at 80 hours a week and a very livable salary (don't kid yourself). I even know several couples teetering on the brink of marriage - and these are not acquaintances, these are people I know and love, whose parents approve and everything. Could it really be that I am actually old enough for all of this to be normal?

As with any important change in my life, I have been somewhat prepared with a way to handle the transition long before the change itself actually mentally hit me. Consequently, I had a job lined up for me when I returned from D.C. It's a great job with people I love, a decent pay and a flexible enough schedule so that I have ample time to go home and stress about what I will actually be doing for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, to my parents, this preparation spells out "complete financial independence," and so now I not only face an endless September but also endless issues of car and health insurance, rent and taxes on top of that.

But isn't that what an undergraduate education is supposed to prepare you for? Especially since there are hundreds of my fellow UCLA students who have been doing it independently all along - I can do it as well as the next guy. If that is the case, then why is the prospect so scary? Why is there so much comfort in having a schedule full of classes and something that has to be studied at all times?

I guess my anxiety comes down to one struggle, one dilemma, one irony - the concept and definition of freedom. Freedom is what baffles every college graduate, what keeps my friends and me incessantly pondering and debating.

The dilemma is as follows: the more freedom I have to choose my career, to explore my options, to be young and travel and breathe the fresh air while I am still responsible to no one, the less freedom I have financially. It means I am not building or saving for any future, and it means that, when I am done exploring down the road, I will still be in the same undefined limbo that I am in right now.

Conversely though, the more committed I am to a career now, the more hours I spend and the more money I make, there is less time I have to figure myself out, to take advantage of the fact that there is a whole world open to me. I will have built a foundation for what could be a life-long, lucrative career - but it might be the wrong one.

And so, as I fill out the card to receive my diploma and pack my bags to go home in my last week of financial dependence, I am thinking about what it really means to be an adult. I wonder, is it financial security or spiritual security that's more valuable? Do I have a greater responsibility to my community and my future family, or to myself? As in most things, I imagine the answer lies in compromise; I have to make sure that I neither lose my grip on myself in order to fit into the system, nor lose my grip on the system while in search of my self.

I am glad that I didn't spend more time at UCLA - it was time to graduate and move on. I do not feel unprepared for this transition. I think that adjusting is simply difficult, no matter how much I could have anticipated it. But I plan to make something out of the change, to grow from it and struggle just like I have in the past.

When I look at it that way, then, this September is no different from any other September in my life - it is still desperate and exhilarating at the same time. The only difference is that now I am scrambling to make the most of a whole life, not just a lost summer.

I am exhilarated, not just for a new class, new clothes or another rung on the ladder. This time, I breathlessly face the dawning of a new life, a new world and a new me.

White is a 1998 alumna who graduated with a degree in English.

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