Words by Kathlene Masilongan
Disclaimer: This article was written based on the perspective and experiences of the author and does not claim to speak for or represent anyone else other than herself.
When I was in high school I had the whole of my twenties planned out in my mind. You see, I liked planning things, especially the future. The dream was this: get into college, graduate, get a steady job, write, get published at age 25, move out, get a Siberian Husky, live in a cute and semi-minimalist apartment with said Husky, have wine nights, best friend brunches, and basically live life like a white woman in an early 2000s romcom.
That was around eight years ago when I was young and didn’t take into account that life happens. My old university used this slogan: “If You Have Big Dreams, Start Here”, and that was enough for me to be enthusiastic for one or two terms before I realized that I didn’t like what I was doing and my big dreams had nothing to do with the major I was taking at the time.
So I quit.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make. My mental health was off the rails and I felt like my whole world was falling apart because my 10-year plan was in shambles. How was I even going to bring it up with my mom? That question terrified me the most. Luckily, it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be and we came to a compromise.
Fast forward to today. I just filed for my candidacy for graduation four whole years after I was “supposed to” graduate. It felt good, it felt like I was finally accomplishing something worthwhile and I’m kind of proud of myself. However, the eight years I spent in and out of university wasn’t a walk in the park.
What I thought I’d be at age 24.
Saying goodbye to friends and reciting your excuses
Going into my new school, I didn’t make a lot of friends because I was taking a major that hardly anyone took–English, and not the education kind either. I made friends with a handful of people and they became my support group for a while… until they had to graduate without me. They were still my friends but I wasn’t going to see them on a daily basis anymore. Still, I had a couple of friends left, but they eventually had to graduate before me too. And I was completely left alone.
Watching them post their graduation pictures, wearing their togas, holding their diplomas, going on their vacations–I was jealous. The voice at the back of my mind kept telling me that if only I wasn’t selfish and dramatic then I would have graduated too. I would have something to be proud of instead of always being the oldest student in almost all of my classes.
Me every time I introduce myself to the youngins.
It always felt weird seeing people who were younger than me talk about their jobs and their bosses meanwhile I had papers to write and an allowance to budget. I felt small, like I wasn’t keeping up, like I was falling behind in life. I knew I wasn’t dumb, I knew I was doing good in school despite my pace, but I still felt tiny. Worthless, even. Not to mention having to deal with people constantly asking when I was graduating.
Every time some I had to see some family member I was bombarded with the usual questions like do I have a boyfriend or what am I taking in college, which is fine and all, I’m tita-proof by now. I know my lines and I say them well. But when you’re asked “why haven’t you graduated yet?” what do you tell your tita then? Do you say it’s because you had a quarter-life crisis and was questioning your goals and dreams in life and the very existence of your being? No. You smile and say “because I shifted courses.” That usually worked and they’d move on to press about the boyfriend thing.
ALSO READ: Tita, please stop asking me when I’m getting married
Feeling like you’re missing out on life
I had to physically delete Facebook from my phone because it was getting too much at one point. Seeing all of my “batchmates” getting jobs, getting married, and having babies was becoming overwhelming because I felt like I was still a child and there they were having baptisms for their newborns and I couldn’t relate. It’s not like I want to get married or have kids or anything, it’s just that they’re free to do that stuff because they don’t have finals to study for anymore and it was kind of annoying.
They’d complain about work but as a twenty-three year old, I thought it was better to complain about work than to complain about a professor that’s never on time or school requirements that don’t make sense.
As another year passed and I still wasn’t graduating, I was starting to get embarrassed. The people of authority I kept meeting were my age and it was awkward that they saw me as a child. Again, the voice at the back of my mind kept telling me that it was my fault that I was stuck. I knew that if I didn’t shut it up, I was going to go on a downward spiral and take another decade to recover.
Me whenever there’s a group presentation.
Getting over the feeling of failure
Perhaps the biggest thing I had to fix was thinking that I was a failure. It was inevitable. I set such high standards for myself and I didn’t meet them. As a perfectionist, critic, and someone who’s always been set as an example for being a model student, my brain just couldn’t fathom not achieving things. I was knocked down several pegs and it felt like shit.
It was hard because I felt like I was constantly letting people down, most of all my parents. I was supposed to help them in life and all that jazz, but I’m still asking them for allowance at age 24 and it was getting old. I was getting old. But I had to fight the voice that kept saying that I was never going to get out of this time loop-like life. I had to fake it until I made it. I gathered all the positivity I could, indulged myself in my likes and hobbies, reconnected with my interests that made me feel normal and human, found part-time work, and told myself that it was going to be fine all for the sake of my sanity.
One day, I was watching this Korean language teacher’s vlog (because I was studying the language at that time) and he explained that in Korea, university students took breaks often and that it wasn’t that big of a deal to not graduate “on time” because people had to work for college, go to the military, and do other things. There wasn’t a general societal pressure to graduate on a specified date, just as long as they did. It was so random, but that video gave me an epiphany and broadened my perspective.
ALSO READ: Finding My Happy Place: What I Learned From Shifting Majors
Accepting that life isn’t a race
It really isn’t. Saying that life is a race means that the end goal is death, which is…Â yikes. Life should be a stroll, a light jog if you’re feeling spicy. You’re supposed to embrace every single thing that happens and learn from it. That being said, college definitely isn’t a race. I know people who went through the standard four-year thing and got nothing out of it, and I know people who stopped and went on a different path and are living their best lives now. It isn’t a measure of anything, most especially intelligence and worthiness.
I know that it’s hard because you constantly feel like you’re missing out on life, but just because you’re in school doesn’t mean you don’t have a life to live. It’s just that your life is different. The things I learned from my eight years in college have little to do with the education I received. I realized recently that I probably wouldn’t have been ready to face the “real world” if I had graduated in 2015 like I was “supposed to”. But now I am. I’ve grown into a person who’s ready to take over the world.
So what if my life plans were delayed by a couple of years? If you put it into perspective, I’ve only lived a third of my life and while at times I didn’t want to live it, I still learned from it. And that’s what’s important.
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