I won’t be graduating until June, but because of the way my course works my last lecture is tomorrow morning. Next semester I’ll be going on an exchange to France (more about that later though), so with the exception of exams in January and a week of presentations in May, this week is essentially my last in Bath.
It all seems kind of surreal at the moment, because it sort of snuck up on me; it was only at the beginning of this week that I suddenly realised after tomorrow I would no longer have any lectures. It makes me think that, at least according to the University, I know what I need to know to be an engineer now. Kind of scary to think I could be designing the next generation of airplanes… and people would unknowingly step foot in a death machine designed by me!
Jokes aside, my 5 years of university have gone by incredibly quickly. I guess it’s true what they say – life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer to the end you get, the faster it goes. I remember my first few days – arriving in Bath a bright-eyed, innocent (at least partly) 18 year old, living in a house with 17 other people, kind of like my time at boarding school, but with greater expectations, more hope for the future. University was the time of my life when I would grow into the person I wanted to be; I would become an engineer and graduate with a 1st degree, I would know what I wanted to do, I would be able to find a job easily with such a good degree – basically I could do whatever I wanted.
Now, that may all be true, but at the time I didn’t realise that what was more important than all of that was knowing what it was I wanted. And that’s still a question I don’t know how to answer. Maybe I have just put off making decisions because I figured things would work themselves out – a kind of delusion of choice; in the past decisions beyond my control have effected my life and so maybe I’ve fallen into the habit of assuming that no matter what I want, somehow someone else’s decision will make mine irrelevent.
At least it’s true that looking at who I am now I barely recognize the kid who stepped out of the car in first year. I’ve met some great people who I know I will be in touch with for years to come, if not for the rest of my life, and I’ve also had some great experiences, in particular last year working in Belgium and France.
I guess I have mixed emotions about the end of University – I will miss it, without a doubt, but it is time for me to move on – to somewhere bigger and to (finally) earning my own money (assuming I can find a job of course… this isn’t the ideal year to be graduating). I also can’t help but feel that at times I could have got more out of it, that I missed some opportunities. And then there’s the usual question – where do I go from here?
