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With one more quarter to go, commencement is only a hop, skip and a few more all-nighters away for those of us who will be graduating in the spring. Senioritis is once again our tireless companion.

But it’s different this time. In high school, college was the light at the end of the tunnel. Now the future is less clear.

For those of us who don’t have jobs or internships waiting, we can only deflect The Question (What are you doing after you graduate?) so many times before the commencement tune “Pomp and Circumstance” begins to sound like an executioner’s song. An ambiguous future impatiently solicits definition, but due to the lowering value of a college diploma, we can hardly be shamed for not jumping into jobs straight away.

They’ve got names for our stalled condition. A USA Today article on the subject says sociologists call it a prolonged adolescence. According to The Fayetteville Observer, some have created a new term that dubs us “adultlescents.” One article in The Sacramento Bee has renamed us Generation Yo-Yo, playing on the fact that after college, many of us will return home to live with our parents again.

Admittedly, there’s truth to what they say. USA Today cited a study by Twentysomething Inc., a market research group that studies youth trends, which found that in 2004, 65 percent of college graduates expected to live at home again after earning their degrees.

And if adulthood is being measured by traditional milestones, such as marriage and financial independence, then our generation could be given yet another name – The Slackers.

In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had finished school, left home, gotten married, had a child, and attained financial independence by age 30. The study cited in the USA Today article found that in 2000, only 46 percent of women and 31 percent of men had reached those same markers.

And I have to say, even though it resonates with slacker-ism: It’s not our fault. We have derailed from the beaten path, but it’s much harder these days to squeeze financial independence out of a bachelor’s degree.

College students today graduate with a diploma that is less valuable in the face of a more competitive world.

If reaching the traditional markers of adulthood is taking longer, it’s because a bachelor’s degree isn’t enough anymore – you’ve got to get through more years of expensive graduate education before you can really commence, while meanwhile accruing a weighty debt on your shoulders. Heavier financial obstacles further obscure the road to independence.

Fourth-year sociology student Jose Inigo gets frustrated when his parents expect him to jump right into a steady career immediately after graduation. He said he often explains to them that “college opens doors but it doesn’t give you instant access to a good job.”

When I asked Inigo about his post-graduation plans, he readily admitted that he had no idea.

Like many of his peers, Inigo isn’t prolonging his dependence on his parents out of laziness; he just doesn’t want to carelessly rush into a career in which he isn’t interested.

“I’m being super choosy right now mostly because I want that dream job where I’m doing something I really like,” he said.

Inigo isn’t being childish because he knows that pursuing his passions requires a monetary sacrifice, a sacrifice he’s carefully thought about and chosen to make.

Like other students, Inigo is currently sifting through several internships, seemingly wasting his time in economically poor pursuits, but actually exploring his interests while getting his foot in the door.

This plan is prudent, but financially it will be a strain.

Unfortunately, most internships are unpaid – essential for getting started somewhere but cruelly unpaid.

Like the rest of us, Inigo is looking for a career he’ll love. That’s the main distinction between our generation and past generations.

University of Western Ontario sociologist James Côté, who studies the transition into adulthood, said in a USA Today article, “The traditional adulthood of duty and self-sacrifice is becoming more and more a thing of the past.”

Traditional adulthood is being left behind in favor of pursuing interests, and there’s nothing wrong with that – even if it means we have to be “adultlescents.”

It’s not that we fear working hard. We fear working hard for a job that isn’t worthwhile. Let’s say your life really does flash before your eyes right before you die. Wouldn’t it be tragic if the flashback of your life is as bland as C-SPAN?

Last week when my mother asked me The Question, I whimsically mused that I planned to move to Italy to sell oranges on the street. Before I could say “I’m joking,” she frantically replied, “What oranges? Where will you get these oranges? Where?” After a pause, she asked me to please come back to the real world.

Some of us are moving along at a slower pace. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t becoming responsible adults. There are economic constraints that we have to be mindful of, but we shouldn’t have to give up our interests just to follow a timetable.

When the late physicist Frank Oppenheimer was asked to please come back to the real world, he said, “We don’t live in the real world. We live in a world we made up.”

Here’s hoping that though off-schedule, the world we make up will be inspiring and always worthwhile, even if it entails oranges.

If you are a wholesale supplier of oranges, e-mail Tao at atao@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.