Liz Nass: Hi, Claire.
Claire Donohoe: Hi, Liz.
Liz: Sorry, I’m late. I’m pretty sure this writing session at Haraz is going to be one of the last State News things I’ll ever be late to.
Claire: Well, yes. That’s because we’re graduating.
Liz: Right, which is something you’ve been talking me off the ledge about for about seven months, actually. I keep saying, "Yeah, I think life ends after this. Like this is it, right?"
Claire: Yeah, you do. Which is concerning because life certainly doesn’t end after you throw your cap in the air, but I can understand how it feels that way – considering the minute you enroll in university you’re told it "goes by so fast" and will be "the best four years of your life."
Liz: College happens at a unique place in our life, we’re not exactly young and not exactly grown up. It really does feel like life starts and ends right here.
Claire: I feel like a single college year is actually three regular ones. The growth we experience is so quick and compressed, and the amount of time we spend here passes in the blink of an eye, sure, but it also feels unexplainably long sometimes. Freshman year was both last night and a decade ago. Not to mention, it’s really humbling in a lot of ways, it’s exciting, it’s emotional and it’s incredibly fun.
Liz: Do you think that’s why our parents and every adult you ever talk to when you’re 17 is always preaching this monotonous, constant tiring concept of the "best four years of your life?" Is it because four years, or what feels like forty lifetimes, of being too dramatic and focused on our own young nihilistic tendencies sounds so attractive when compared to planning a yearly vacation around a 9-to-5?
Claire: I think that could definitely be a reason, but I hope it’s not universal. I don’t think the whole "best four" thing works. I think it could be the "best four" so far in our young lives, but I reject the idea that it "all goes downhill from here" – something else I feel like I’ve heard from a handful of adults. There’s something deeply special about this time, but I also hope I one day enjoy planning vacations, too.
Liz What is the purpose of berating us with this phrase, though?
Claire: I think it’s a bit of a projection sometimes, or, less cynically, just nostalgia hitting the wrong way. I think the majority of people who offer this phrase aren’t mal-intended. They say it to excite wide-eyed 18 year olds who might have hated high school and are ready to leave home. I think they say it to demonstrate how much they loved that season of life, and to comfort whoever they’re speaking to. Or, sometimes, they might just miss it because their post-grad plans didn’t turn out how they wanted. What do you think?
Liz: I think it’s a fear response, to be the more cynical person in our duo, like always. When you look back at the last time you got to stay up until 4 a.m. just to wake up the next day for a lecture you start to fear that when the word “teen” was at the end of your age was the last time you lived recklessly. No one expects much more of us, and in fact, encourage us to live it up because for some reason or another, that is completely unacceptable for a 32 year old. But the problem is that these kids get told that they'll have inherit FOMO and the burning need to go out every night is the only way to really make college "count." Or maybe that’s just me, I love an event.
Claire: Right. And I don’t want to sound like I’m harping on people who say this phrase – I mean, it’s not necessarily their fault. We’re talking about it today because we want to explain how the sentiment can be more damaging than productive. This phrase, especially with social media’s unfiltered access to constant comparison, can cause a lot of anxiety for young people to have this “perfect” college experience – which doesn’t exist, by the way – and dampens the idea that people have the agency to forge their own path post-graduation, too.
Liz: If it’s not their fault, whose fault is it then?
Claire: I don’t know if there’s a single place to point the finger, but I don’t blame people who love their college years so loudly. It’s one of the only times Americans are encouraged to live in close community with people of a similar age and rely on each other, engage with their interests in a rewarding way and forge their own paths without thinking too hard about capitalism and being a "productive" member of society all the time. I don’t blame the people saying this phrase, because why wouldn’t they say that? I just want to reframe how we view it.
Liz: Right, because if we don’t reframe it, then you could be taking your senior pictures at Beaumont Tower, spraying champagne everywhere on the white dress you need to wear in two weeks, and be too focused on "What did I not do?" instead of "What did I do with the last four years? Who did I make connections with? What am I most proud of?" I think this deflation of second semester seniors comes from the aesthetic that is prescribed by "day in my life as a senior" social media posts.
Claire: And there’s the whole concept of "proving" it, too, right? Proving this was the best four years of your life by adopting the worshipped aesthetics we see online every day. We have to remind ourselves that college is often not what it seems on our screens – that our peers struggle, too, that we’re all just posting our highlights.
Liz: One reason it feels like the best four years of your life are staring at you as you hold your high school diploma is because you’re literally 17 years old. Before this, you were gross and going through puberty and being the worst human being before you learned to have morals. Since then, you deleted Life360 from your phone – sorry Mom – and are figuring out who you are outside of whatever high school nickname you had. It’ll feel like life is barreling down on graduation day when you’re 22 years old with no plans because it’ll have been the best four years of your life. Yet.
Claire: Right. This is a classic "you only know what you know" situation – like most things when your frontal lobe is still developing. Life simply can’t end after we graduate. Life as we know it now will, but things can become the best in a new way, I’d hope. One big thing I’ve learned in college is that many things can be true at once — and this is no different.
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Liz: The way I’ve been coping with it, other than going to Honky Tonk Tuesdays, is reading memoirs. No memoir ends after the college days. It’s usually one of the first chapters, and it can be the jumping off point to their story, but if anything, it’s usually a mundane introduction for the rest of their lives.
Claire: "Mundane introduction" is oddly comforting. I don’t want to diminish that college is a fantastic time, but I do want to hold close the idea that it can also get good afterwards. And maybe that’s just how I have to cope with the bittersweetness I feel about graduating in two weeks.
Liz: I think that’s why I’m so passionate about this topic. Because I’ve had such an amazing time and I don’t want to leave East Lansing and it’s eating me alive that I won’t see you, or my roommates, or the newsroom. I like the routine chaos I’ve built here. But maybe I can build that somewhere else soon, too.
Claire: Agreed. Well, everyone, look out for our memoirs in a few years. Certainly, this moment in Haraz will be in the early chapters.
Liz: This is also a huge prank. We’re never graduating. They can’t make us.
Claire: Right.
Liz: Another coffee, Claire?
Claire: Sure, Liz.
