In about 3 months another school year will be wrapping up. This means little league, swimming pools, and visiting friends and relatives is merrily rolling closer. For those of you that are seniors it means you have a few more months to endure and hopefully find an answer to the question that is more than likely being posed to you everyday…”So what are you planning on doing after graduation?” The level of difficulty of this question is going to vary greatly from student to student. Some have had it figured out for awhile now, well at least they think they have. What they don’t know is this world has monkey wrenches lurking around every corner, and you never know when one is going to be chucked in your direction. You can’t duck em’ all, nor do you need or want to. A forced change of direction might just lead you in the right direction.

“So…..what are you doing after graduation?” What do you want to be when you grow up, or I mean, grow older. Remember growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional. If you’ve ever spent any time with my family you know that we have just about all decided to ignore the option of growing up. There is a plethora of options out there, I like that word ‘plethora’, it’s hard to squeeze it into a conversation so you have to throw it out there every chance you get.

Of the options available to you about the only one that I feel qualified to preach at you about is the college option. Someone jokingly asked me when I was in my 6th year of college if I planned on making a career of it, well, yes I did, and I have. I don’t know what I would do if my life wasn’t divided into semesters, with a sprinkling of random vacations, and slathering of summers off. My face hurts from smiling.

As an instructor I have a few pointers for you potential college students, pointers on what will make the faculty happy or at least more tolerant. First off, show up for class, everyday, on time. If you miss class for some reason, real or imagined, go talk to the instructor as soon as possible. No elaborate, lame excuses just apologize for missing class and ask if there were any assignments. Secondly, when your in class, don’t fall asleep. Us instructors are well aware that some of what we’re teaching you isn’t all that entertaining, but at least fain interest. Thirdly, take ownership in your education by being an active part of the learning process. Just like most everything in life, you’ll get out of college what you put into it.

The majority of instructors are there to guide you and show you the various paths available to you, of course there are always those that really don’t care if you succeed or not. Either way you gotta be there and be awake to see those paths or you might get lost. Trust me I got myself lost more than a few times in my academic career, as a result, my GPA took a few donkey kicks, but I figured it out….eventually. I’m sure you will too.