While in the middle of printing bios for 92 Durant and Wilton seniors, I felt it fitting to reprint a column I wrote May 21, 2009, which I think is still applicable today. Congratulations to our area seniors. Don’t ever forget about Durant and Wilton, as your hometowns won’t forget about you. Cheers!
—Derek Sawvell
(Editor’s note: The following was printed May 21, 2009.)
This is an exciting time of year. Both of our high schools will see another class graduate May 19, and our paper has been full of the many seniors with their many accomplishments and future plans listed.
Meanwhile, with my high school years (and college years) behind me, I’m just thinking about reunions. That’s what happens when you get a little older I suppose.
I wonder how many of the seniors out there had “senioritis.”
Senioritis is that ever so popular disease in which high school seniors can’t think of anything other than graduating, and most importantly, being done with high school. It causes a sort of “who cares I’m graduating” kind of mentality.
Senioritis can hit at any age, starting around the sophomore year when kids get their driver’s licenses and truly begin to see what freedom feels like. There’s a sense of power being able to drive and get that first car. Soon, some can’t wait to drive away from school and never look back.
I began feeling the senioritis bug around my sophomore year. I had no idea why I wanted to be done with high school. Perhaps it was because by that point, you just feel like school is all you know and the end is so near that the routine is soon to change. That change can be exciting, but it can also be a bit scary too.
While I feel that most seniors have experienced senioritis at some point, not all feel it their entire senior year. Some kids begin to feel a bit saddened by the fact that the end is near for their high school career. These kids are the smart ones.
What they should be thinking is: “I’ve got it pretty good here.” Think about it. Your senior year is your last real year to be free from responsibility. That’s what I was thinking.
I don’t mean that literally. But, in these small towns, you’re surrounded by the people you grew up with, your best friends. You live in quiet communities where everyone knows your name. You’re full-time job is to be a student and you get to take part in fun activities such as sports and extra curricular activities. You don’t have a stack of bills to pay and don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to go to school. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Plus, the air is nicer at the top. When you’re a senior, everyone looks up to you because they have no choice. You’re the oldest and get all the perks.
So instead of senioritis, perhaps Adam Sandler had it right in the film “Billy Madison.” He has to complete grades 1-12 in two-week increments. He befriends the kids in third grade and visits them after starting the ninth grade.
One of the third graders says to Billy, “wow, I can’t wait until I get to high school!”
“Don’t you say that,” said Billy as he places his hands on the young man’s face. “Don’t you ever say that. Stay here. Stay as long as you can. Cherish it. For the love of God, cherish it. You have to cherish it, you do.”
Those are words of wisdom. That would be my exact quote to any senior who told me “man I can’t wait to graduate, I just want to get out of here.”
Cherish it.
***
On a different note however, graduation is still right around the corner so whether the seniors like it or not, they are done.
Many will be in for a rude awakening as they become freshmen (in college) all over again, going from the top of the totem pole back to the bottom.
Now there are some changes. Big tuition and new locations are involved. In the world of education, college is the “big time.”
Many of these seniors will be out on their own at college, and there are many paths to travel en route to that degree.
When choosing a path, the best advice I can give is to prioritize your wants. Think about what is most important to you as you travel down your path because the truth is, nobody really knows what they want to be.
The questions I hated most while I was going through college were: “What’s your dream job?” “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” “What are your career goals?” I could go on and on.
You seniors will hear these questions over and over. The interesting thing is that most of the time it will be an adviser at your college who is asking those questions to you. They think they are being wise by asking you tough questions.
Those questions are tough because they are unanswerable. Just ask them the same questions: “Did you want to be an adviser 10 years ago?” “Was being an adviser your career goal?” “Was it your dream job?”
This isn’t an attack on advisers. They are helpful people and one of my favorite people I ever worked with during my college career was Shelly Cram-Rahlf, a former Wilton grad and my adviser at Muscatine Community College. She was one of the good ones. Yet, advisers often ask too many unanswerables.
For curiosity’s sake, I looked through each of the senior sections from Durant and Wilton to get an idea of future plans. Out of roughly 115 seniors from both schools (in 2009), I counted around 30 that were either “undecided” or just listed certain colleges or majors without specific aspirations.
I’ll bet some of those 30 individuals may have been a bit embarrassed turning in a sheet to us without having a blueprint to their life written down.
In reality, these kids have the secret. The secret is that there are no blueprints. For the remaining 85 students that did list what they were going to be, I’ll wager that if we find them 10 years down the road as the question suggests, the lion’s share of them won’t have occupations matching what was printed in our paper.
Whether all your decisions have been made or you are undecided, all I would like to say is that it is OK to say “I don’t know.”
Don’t let a questionnaire or an adviser make you feel like you don’t belong because you don’t know what your career goals are.
As I said before, prioritize. Instead of thinking about the unanswerable questions, think about your desires here and now.
For example, my top priority was to be debt free when I finished college. After six years and four degrees, I can say that I never borrowed a cent to pay for college. I had great parents who helped me with as much as they could, and I worked while I was in school to help pay for the rest.
Most importantly, I devised the most cost-effective path that I could. Every decision I made throughout my collegiate career was made with that priority in mind. Sure I made sacrifices, but not having a mountain of debt was very important to me.
The moral of this long story is that I have worked as a journalist for most of my adult life but never majored in it.
Case in point, my senior bio read as follows: While at WHS, Derek Sawvell was a four-year varsity letter winner in golf. He was a member of FFA for three years and for two years he was an assistant coach for eighth grade basketball. He was the co-sports editor for the Beaver Tale. The son of Tami and Stan Sawvell, Derek plans to attend a technical/vocational school in the future.
I chuckled when I read my bio. Sounds like a guy who was “undecided” to me!
