So you say you’re graduating soon? Well, if you are one of the thousands of college seniors nationwide graduating soon with no idea what the future has in store for you, join the anxiety club like the rest of us. Believe me; I completely understand your frustrations and worries. I mean, every day of your life you have had your life planned out for you. First, it was grade school then college. But now, for the first time, there is no “master plan.”

Some of your friends may still be waiting on acceptance letters from to graduate program or have a job offer, but reality is that most of us don’t. Most of us are just taking it day by day. The stress of working through college or just working through your classes is enough to make any student’s head spin. One key tip to successfully getting through all this madness is rational thinking.

The first step to sanity is to keep in mind that everything will be ok. You have made it this far, and this is only the beginning. Life does not end with college. To the contrary, life is just about to start. Along with graduating, college will hopefully come more respect, bigger paychecks, adulthood and self-responsibility. There is so much to look forward to in the future. The rest of us who don’t have that great job waiting for us straight out of college have got to look on the bright side. The sky is the limit, and this may be the one time in your life where you can go anywhere and pursue anything.

Some of you may want to go to graduate schools, but those acceptance letters won’t come until the summer. So the plan until then is to stress out about all the possibilities of not getting accepted. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is not the most productive idea. Take into account that there is a chance you may not get accepted and that, at worst, you will have to reapply next year. In the meantime, find a job, concentrate on studying harder for those graduate exams or move back home and save money.

Yes, I said those dreadful words, “move back home.” It may seem like the last place you want to be after college and after spending the last years of your life in freedom, but if you have the choice to move back home, it may not be that bad. It can save you money, and who doesn’t mind finding dinner ready every now and then. Most students can’t picture life at home after college. We just want to travel the globe, meeting new people while making lots of money. We want that dream job that gives us just the right balance between glamour and luxury.

If we have learned one thing from all the years of studying, it’s that nothing comes easy, including dream jobs and dream graduate programs. Most well-paying jobs require experience and training, something most of don’t have straight out of college. But to get the experience, we need the job. So we end up getting stuck in the hole, with anxiety building up and back at square one with no “master plan.” Remember to keep working hard and continue your education if you have the chance.

College years are fun and for the most part carefree. They are the times in our life when we have everything planned out for us. But don’t be afraid to get into the driver’s seat and take control of the wheel. The road has just begun and this is the time to make your own decisions. There is no “master plan” and there is so much to look forward to.

Aya Batrawy is a senior majoring in mass communications and history. batrawyUSF@yahoo.com