The inevitable question strikes repeatedly at every family picnic. Your boyfriend's uncle wants to know. So do all your mother's coworkers and the guy who makes prosthetic legs across the street.
"So what are you going to do with your degree?"
How should I know? I haven't gotten it yet. Sure I have dreams, but it's fair to say they're unrelated to employment.
I don't get worked up when I have a Shakespeare paper that was due two months ago or when I lose a $300 check or when my car stalls on the entrance ramp to I-90 because I've run out of gas trying to make it to a Spectrum meeting on time.
Instead, I tend to reach the breaking point when a hug isn't long enough or if no one saves me an ear of sweet corn when I can't make it home for dinner.
Not that any of these things have ever happened.
So while I sat on a toppled "I-90" sign at the side of the road in my sundress last Monday afternoon waiting for the Thruway department to show up, I chewed over some of the plumper questions.
What has attending this gigantic university done to me? What have I become? Do I really want to move far, far away and live on a farm? Am I prepared for life in the real world?
I'm not so sure. After four years here, my people tolerance has decreased considerably. I see myself acquiring the motto of my father:
"I don't want any more friends. I have too many as it is."
When I was a freshman, I would sit myself down next to people in the hallway and say, "Hi my name is Katie," which indeed solicited some weird looks, but also a few acquaintances. Nowadays I cringe at the idea of entertaining yet another person I don't really know or don't really like, which might not be so good for the boss/coworker aspect of the job industry.
Plus, with over 26,000 students at UB, we get our fair share of weirdoes. There are a lot of nuts in this world - cashews, Brazil nuts, pecans, and macadamias. Though that girl you saw walking across campus last year in a Cinderella dress pulling a boom box in a red wagon blasting L.L. Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" - well, she just had a project for Spanish class.
Which brings me to another concern - what if I wear too many jelly bracelets for people to take me seriously? I don't think I'm ready to let go of the penguin backpack either. It gives me strength.
What do I want? Do I want to live on a farm or be in a band? Do I want to get married and get a real 9 to 5 job, or (crikey!) do I want to be a full-time student for the rest of time?
That's what I'll do with my degree. File it and start a new one. There has to be someone out there who pays people for this sort of thing.
I guess I'm in fair shape, looking at things in the broader perspective. I go to college. (Good start.) UB hasn't sucked me into its preferred five-year program yet. (Whoops, you didn't do your Library Skills Workbook? Take your time - we'll take your money.)
I'm not in debt. My GPA hasn't fallen down the slippery slope. I have all my teeth. I wasn't one of the skankily-clad girls freak dancing in a pile at Friday's Fallfest. Oh, except I just admitted that I went.
A few reminders for other soon-to-be graduates are probably an order - don't wait until the night before to print off that single page application for degree from the Student Response Center, fill it out and deliver it to 252 Capen. Wait, what am I saying? That will be me.
Check those DARS reports. You don't want to be that guy who buys his cap and gown then discovers after the drop/add period that he's missing two credits and his advisor didn't even tell him. Not that that's ever happened either.
Like the chick in the movie "Chocolat," I wonder where the north wind will take me in another 10 months when I put on my red cape and leave this self-sustaining microcosm.
The question remains: Will the Buffalo Triangle suck me back into its freezing abyss?
I fall into a pattern of complacency living here, but so often we resist change. Stasis is no darn good. And on that note, UB's next president should definitely institute a hovercraft system between South and North Campus.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
