There is something inherently different about senior year. I've been trying to put my finger on it, and I think I figured some of it out.
1. It's the last year. It's the year of lasts. Going in, you know that if you don't do all the collegiate things you want to do you won't be back at college to try again. After the Dolphin Show closed, I had a moment when I realized that there would be no more Dolphin Shows for me. It was kind of the first last. I had such a strange mixture of emotions and am still struggling to comprehend what it will mean not to have this annual behemoth of a show to work on.
2. You're the oldest; all your older friends have graduated and moved on. This was a particularly harsh reality for me at the beginning of the year when I had to find my rhythm of hanging out with my current crowd since so many of my close friends had already graduated, but now I just feel like I'm going to be leaving a bunch of people I love come June. It's very Paper Towns, and I need to sort it all out with other people's stories and words before I can come to terms with it, but I know that I will be missing a lot of amazing friends when I leave this campus for the last time.
3. Something changes in the way people interact with you. They think you know things. I am guilty of having done this to my seniors of 2011 and probably even 2012 to a certain extent. On the one hand, seniors have had the time and experience to figure things out. You've taken your classes and done the student group thing until you kind of know what's going on. The secret is, you never really feel like you actually know. Or at least I don't. Which makes the "oh, you're a senior" pedestal a very difficult place for me to stand. It makes me very uncomfortable when people do that to me. I'm sorry for anyone who I made uncomfortable by doing that very thing.
4. You don't feel all that different. I feel very much the same as I did when I was a freshman. I still pride myself on being a good student, I hate going without sleep, I ask more questions than the average person, and I worry a lot that I'm going to mess up. I may have acquired more knowledge, but I still feel like I'm faking it most of the time, but people believe me because I say things like I believe myself. Basically, just because you're the oldest at the school, doesn't mean you're actually qualified to be an authority figure, but suddenly you're the one with the most experience or perceived expertise, so you are forced to step up.
5. School takes less time. At least it does for me. For the last two terms, I have been in a class that only meets sporadically, so I spend less time in classrooms overall even though I am enrolled for a full courseload.
I think that's all I want to put on this list for now.
Today is awesome because of Emile Durkheim.
