the anticlimax.

after the mad cramming ends and all the dust settles...
all we are left... is this... anticlimatic end.
"convocation"... at the end of 4 long years.

this graduation is so drastically different from all other graduations.
in each previous educational institution, there was something better to look forward to after the end. something new and exciting, more fun, more freedom.

4 years go when we first entered this institution, it came, for many, a highly valued prize achieved after years of hard work. it came as affirmation, of one's wroth and achievements.
stepping into Goodes hall, sitting in 342 for the first time, the Director of the program proudly announced our class average and the highlights of some individuals amongst us, and reassured us for the nth time, that we were the best and brightest of this country, "cream of the crop",they used to say. We were excited and proud, ready to take on the new challenges that would be thrown our way.

However, 4 years later, after countless nights in a breakout room, numerous interviews and hours and hours of our youth, our best years, toiled away at meaningless assignments and buried in the library. Isn't it alarming that for most students, the highlight of their 4 years here was their term they spent away from this "cute university town" that we had so dearly longed for?

As graduation nears and the September plans are shared. I am disappointed. As I watch "the best and brightest", one by one, sign their lives away into yet another job, another company, excited only by the safety net they have secured, by the new "employed" status.... w/ a self assuring shrug they say, "just a couple of years, just a couple of years... until...."
where is the glory? where is the sense of accomplishment?

Yes, some people are going to the best companies in their industries. but so what? it's just another endless job, day after day, in the suit the office the commute.... none of this... excites me. after 4 years of "higher" education. I think I expected more. I think I thought it would help us find ourselves, help us reach our dreams, push us to new heights and truly inspire us., to use our talents and education to the betterment of society. I can only say, from my very subjective and perhaps, very ungrateful and negative perspective, that I am disappointed. If anything, the past 4 years have extinguished the fire that once lighted brightly inside of me, it has hardened me and took away the ability to dream. it has dulled me and made more "Practical". I can't help but wonder, what were the childhood dreams of our classmates? what are their true passions? How close has these past 4 years truly brought them closer to their original dreams? Or how far it has taken them in the other direction.

I don't regret coming to Queen's. Heck, I don't even regret going into Commerce. I just can't help but feel that this is such an anticlimatic ending to perhaps too naive a dream.