The Last Final

Final project, midterms, quizzes, assignments, lab finals, final review, final exams, end of the year banquet, moving out, leaving friends.

Sitting in an empty game room, only sounds of the clicking of my keyboard and the voices of adolescent male voices from the room over can be heard. The caffeine I.V. I am feening on is causing a constant jig in my leg resting across the top of my other equally shaky one.

Welcome to Cal Poly Spring quarter week eight where it is still midterm season, the Poly Plague is upon us once again and witnessing multiple panic attacks a day in strolls to and from class is inevitable. As students harbor away at studying for midterms they have a gut feeling that they will fail, Starbucks employees scramble to keep up with the never ending traffic of students in need of a lifeline. Calls to parents ending in a constant stream of tears, despair and homesickness.

But why.

Why do students force fatigue, hunger, stress, mental illness and more on themselves?

Some may do it for their family, some may do it for what they think they might want to be, but some do it because they know that's what they have to do in order to achieve the goals they have been striving to reach for so long. The people at Cal Poly are not the ones that sat back and took life in in high school, for reasons on their own accord, but rather they worked hard in order to get where they are today, and for most this is not where the journey to success will end.

As only a first year, I have seen numerous people receive positions with Fortune 500 companies, graduate with degrees that I am not even capable of explaining all of the complexities in which they entail, start their own companies and achieve their dreams. None of these things would have happened had it not been for each individuals caffeine I.V., jitters, water shed and more. Their dedication to what they have to do is what got them to where they are today.

To incoming Cal Poly students: it is hard.

To Cal Poly students: it is hard.

To Cal Poly graduates: it is hard.

Life doesn't just get easy once you are done with school, it gets different. Every new obstacle comes with new challenges. Every direction you choose comes with new questions to be answered. Every action comes with consequences.

To incoming Cal Poly students: Study, you have four years to party, trust me you will get sick of it by the end of the year.

To Cal Poly students: Take a well deserved break, everything you are doing is to achieve something, don't sacrifice your wellbeing to the point that you can't recover.

To Cal Poly graduates: You did it. This isn't where life gets easy or where the fun ends. This is where it changes into what you want it to be. This is what you have been working to achieve the past four (or five plus) years, embrace the value of yourself and follow your dream. You may have taken your last final, but you are going to continue to be tested.