Magdalena

Tomorrow is my last final exam as an undergraduate. It's been pretty hard to stay focused studying - it's a history class, and there are a lot of names, ideas, terms, concepts, I should be going back over and re-memorizing, but I think I can honestly say that I'm just burned out. I'm working on it, though. I really want to get an A in this class, and I'm perfectly capable of getting there if I can just stay with it long enough.

Last week felt pretty strange. As the end of classes approached, I started to feel pretty overwhelmed by everything I was working on and involved in - it seemed like I was stretched so thin that I wasn't doing a fantastic job on anything. I faced some of the consequences of that on Wednesday, when I was giving my honors research presentation at the university symposium. The presentation itself actually went pretty well, and I had a handful of interested people stop by and chat about the project, and they seemed pretty impressed. I found a bunch of small errors on my poster, though. I also wasn't really satisfied with the layout - I put it together when I was tired and not thinking clearly, and I'm pretty sure it showed - it just wasn't as concise or explanatory, or as organized, as I'd have liked.

Thursday was the final exam for OS. I'm pretty sure that I did relatively well. I'm really bugged by the fact that there was one problem that I couldn't quite figure out in time - and then the answer came to me while I was laying in bed the next morning. If I'd only relaxed a bit more during the test, I would have gotten it. The exam overall went a lot better than the midterm, and I didn't freak out about it nearly as much, which was a good thing. I just still had that nagging "I didn't quite give it my all" feeling as I walked out, which was disappointing, since OS was a class that I really wanted to give my all to.

Friday I just decompressed. It was a strange day. I spent most of the day feeling dazed, confused, lost, and upset. I couldn't explain what I was upset about, or why I was feeling so helpless, and honestly it was kind of scary. Granted I also hadn't eaten much in the past 24 hours, which always makes things seem kind of fuzzy. Still, though. I didn't feel like myself at all until the evening, after I'd spent most of the day crying. (!) I feel like it's worth mentioning here just to see if anyone else has gone through the same sort of thing - it (kind of) makes sense that it happened, since I know I was bottling up a lot of stress and anxiety during the semester, and I'm also in the middle of a pretty big transition from student to inhabitant-of-the-real-world...it was scary, though.

One thing that makes me somewhat uncomfortable is that I feel like I'm leaving CMU with a handful of regrets. I've certainly learned a lot and gotten a good experience - but there are a lot of things I wish I would have done differently, and I think I'm having some trouble just accepting that it's impossible to know all of the right answers going into any situation, and that life goes on regardless.

Most of my regrets center around not taking more engineering classes, and around not being more proactive about finding a group of peers to take classes with. I feel like I spent so much energy worrying about how I was doing that I missed a lot of chances to put that energy into actual learning and accomplishment. I also avoided some classes that would have been really valuable because I convinced myself that I just wouldn't be able to handle them. As someone who used not to be so academically intimidated and is (was?) pretty skilled at giving a wholehearted effort, feeling like it was utterly within my reach to take a completely different path, if only my perspective had been a bit different, just doesn't sit well with me. I feel like I let myself down in some big ways, and I'm really only understanding that when it's time to leave.

From the sound of this, it's probably coming across as though I failed classes, acted irresponsibly, etc - none of which is true. I've done well from a "numbers" perspective, and that's what makes this all the more frustrating - there's nothing measurable that I messed up, I just didn't really satisfy myself - and ultimately that's the only judge that matters. I really need to let go of all of this, though, because I'm not going to be able to move on - and make myself proud - unless I can respect myself now.

So, I'm not quite done yet. I'm going to study a bit more, take a final, and then take a few deep breaths and appreciate all that I've experienced in college. It's been an intense four years, and I've changed a lot during them. It's definitely time for something new, even though there's a lot I *will* miss about being here.