Student-Subway ^alpha » Article Archive

As a recent college graduate of the University of San Francisco I am forced, if not obligated to answer the powerful question: What do you plan to do now? I hear it from family members, friends, old people I don’t know, professors, priests, and I suspect that even my cat wants to know. I, almost innately now, scrounge for the answer in my head in hopes that, maybe this time, the one I make up will actually indeed be my destiny. I plummet into a cave of possibilities only to find I’d much rather be telling them the truth. The truth is that, I am not thinking of the future, I am thinking of my past. Every time I am asked this question I cannot help but look into the eyes of the one asking and instantaneously remember my entire college experience in a flash. I remember the smells, the music, the people, the weather, the emotions, the feelings of every single year.

I only remember a handful of professors that truly captivated me, that molded me when I didn’t even have a clue. I also remember those classes that I absolutely dreaded not because I didn’t understand the material but simply because I woke up each day in the dorm room dramatically expressing my hatred for these particular classes. In retrospect, they weren’t even that bad.

I remember the cafeteria. It was the “Central Perk” for undergrad students. Here, you’d listen to, know, and participate in all the dorm room gossip while simultaneously doing homework for that horrible class you hated! I remember the wild times. Throwing up in the stalls while your friends were in the stall right next to you was the mark of true friendship. But those were the friends that would stay by you not only in those times but for the years you had ahead.

Going to clubs was the next step where you would use your fake IDs for the first time. Scared, but intoxicated, somehow you found yourself dancing the night away, talking to people much older than you were, taking rides from them, and walking down streets you never knew existed. You were invincible. You were carefree. You were young.

As the years went by, you found that studying abroad made you grow up quicker as you traveled the world outside the boundaries of San Francisco. You learned and realized the importance of education and the impact you could have in the future. Suddenly you see things in a different light, you see them through eyes that are no longer your own but a part of a universe that needs them.

Your first apartment was truly a mark of upper-classmenship. You were free to bring home whoever you want, throw parties at random times, have a space of your own, and yet laundry had become your worse enemy. Learning to live with roommates was unlike the dorm rooms but still, they became your family.

So when asked, what do you plan to do now?, the question holds more weight then people think; because the answer is not definite. You take into account the life you had created for yourself, the friends that will remain and disappear, the place where you are no longer considered a student, the reminiscence of heartache and intense growth, and a field of memories that you are not ready to leave. What do you plan to do now? They ask. The answer then becomes clear. I plan to remember.

USF at a Glance

USF Alumni Association

No Location Has Been Related To This Article Yet.