Welcome back for another semester and a whole new year, fellow Falcons.
I know for those of you who are considerably younger than me, 2013 probably doesn’t mean much more than the start of another year, but for old guys like me, there is a little bit of shell-shock that goes along with every new year.
It’s because I can still remember the buzz around the threat of Y2K like it was yesterday, even though that was 13 years ago. Did I mention that New Years makes me feel old?
On the whole though, New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite holidays. The focus is on celebrating the fact that everyone is celebrating which makes it unique.
I have always liked the symbolism of the slate being wiped clean as a new year rolls into place. It’s like whatever you wanted to do, but never quite got around to doing, can be done in the new year.
Whether or not you actually get around to doing that one thing is not the important part of New Years. No, the important part is the hope that goes into wanting to do that thing. The important part is the prospect of possibility.
By all accounts, 2013 should be an important year for my family. My wife, Jen, will graduate from law school in May and then I am set to finish my time here at the University in December.
These two big milestones for my family (which includes my 4-year-old daughter Libby, who will start kindergarten in 2013) fill me with hope and the prospect of possibility. They also fill me with fear and dread.
I have spent, since 2008 going back to school, gambling my potential future earnings against the amount of student loan debt I have incurred and after this year, I get my first look at how that gamble may or may not pan out when I see what kind of job market awaits me.
In the abstract, I can honestly say that the education I have received in the past four and a half years is its own reward.
Before starting back to school in 2008 (I first got an associate’s degree from Owens Community College before transferring here in 2011), the only educational degree I had ever attained was my GED, which I took the test for three days after dropping out of high school when I was 18 years old.
I had never graduated from anything that required me to wear a cap and gown until 2010. I also had no idea about the pride and feeling of self-worth that can come with higher education.
I know that many people do not need higher education for that feeling and I am sure that I could have survived without ever feeling it too, but I am very proud of myself for what I have achieved and am glad to have that feeling of accomplishment.
Education is one of those things that no one can ever take from you once you have it and that makes it worth far more than houses, cars and other material goods.
With all that being said, I have a lot of student loan debt and I need a job once school is done. However, I am reminded that it is not impossible when I see friends whom I have worked with here at The BG News going on to great jobs at local newspapers in the area. Then I am reminded that I am a Public Relations major and I will probably never be the hot new reporter on the scene. Then I relive the inner-argument over majoring in the PR or Print sequence that I had with myself a year and a half ago and wonder if the right me won that argument.
But, that’s life friends and readers. We never know if we have made the correct choice; we can only hope we have made the choice that most closely represents who we are and where we hope to go.
And if who we are and where we hope to go should happen to change later, then we will start fresh again next year.
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