This article was originally published prior to June 2, 2013. Due to a change in the content management systems, the initial publication date in not available. 

This is it – my last semester at Baker University.

For 17 years I have sat in classrooms staring at chalkboards, then overhead projectors, then dry-erase boards and now – when technological funding permits – projector screens.

I am ready to upgrade from small student desks to my own “big girl” desk that comes along with having a “big girl” job.

But there is sadness to it, like the emptiness felt when you watch your childhood toys being bargained off at Mom’s garage sale.

You don’t want the toys, yet it hurts to watch them go.

Change is good, but that doesn’t make it easy.

I have to come to terms with this bittersweet truth: I will never again sit in a classroom.

At the ripe age of 21, I have had numerous monumental moments in classrooms.

It is in the classroom that I learned how to count, how to read, how to tell time (without a digital watch) and how to navigate a map (I’m still working on that one).

It is in the classroom that I delivered my first crush a special Aladdin valentine. <br/>It is in the classroom that I watched in desolate silence the attacks of Sept. 11. It is in the classroom that I watched in desolate silence the attacks of Sept. 11. <br/>It is in the classroom that I formed my political beliefs through discussions and debates with classmates, and it is in the classroom that I first fell in love with the words of Walt Whitman.It is in the classroom that I formed my political beliefs through discussions and debates with classmates, and it is in the classroom that I first fell in love with the words of Walt Whitman.
It is in the classroom that I watched in desolate silence the attacks of Sept. 11.
It is in the classroom that I formed my political beliefs through discussions and debates with classmates, and it is in the classroom that I first fell in love with the words of Walt Whitman.

I have learned a wide spectrum of information.

Some I have maintained – stamped in my brain, a footprint of knowledge.

Others I have buried in the depths of my mind alongside the missing matches to my socks (I bet you always wondered where those were).

But it’s all in there somewhere to use at my disposal.

I hope this catalog of knowledge will help me in my life’s endeavors.

But when I really stop to think about it, that I am one semester away from graduation, I ask myself, "Is this it? Do I really have all the knowledge I need to begin my career?" <br/>It's scary, to say the least.It's scary, to say the least.
It’s scary, to say the least.

I hope the answer is yes.

Yes, of course I am ready.

And in some ways this answer is true.

I am ready to take that next step, to retire from the classroom.

Then in some ways I am unsure.

Maybe I’m not ready.

I reflect on my education and wonder, “Is this the end of learning for me?”

I know it is always said that something new is learned every day.

consumption. However, when I think of the days I am not in the classroom, the curriculum is quite simpler: the skill of jar opening, of laundry folding and yes, sometimes of alcohol

I hope my educational journey will continue into my career, that my personal book of knowledge is NOT in its final chapter.

But for now, I am just going to focus on this last semester.

I still have a little more time before I have to fully enter into adulthood.

I will focus on these last courses and make the most of my final days as an undergrad because, in the words of Walt Whitman, “The future is no more uncertain than the present.”