It’s a time when independence teaches you how strong (and weak) you are. A time when you lose childhood friends and gain soul mates. A time when being surrounded by 18-to-22-year-olds all day subconsciously teaches you that dropping f-bombs in public is perfectly acceptable. College is a beautiful time to which many of us hate to say goodbye.
So it’s understandable that ditching your MSU hoodie for a suit and tie can be a little scary. You’re used to waking up and drinking all day at tailgate, not running meetings with intimidating 50-year-old balding men staring at you with their coffee breath.

I’m a journalism major, specializing in public relations and environmental studies. Clearly, I do not have a predestined cubicle awaiting me at the end of a yellow brick road. I don’t have a famous uncle or a rich neighbor already scheduling me an interview the week after my graduation.

I, a carefree junior, will be like so many of you seniors who don’t really have a “Plan A” in place yet. In all honesty, I’m not 100 percent sure about what I want to do when I grow up. But how can I be when we have people such as the former Secretary of Education Richard Riley telling us many of the top 10 jobs currently in demand didn’t even exist in 2004?
But I’m not here to scare you. I’m not here to reiterate the fact that our economy is struggling and tell you that, statistically speaking, you could very well be jobless for quite some time after graduation. I’m here to get you excited about life. Instead of scaring you with statistics of a crappy future, I want to inspire you to be ready for what awaits you and your shiny MSU diploma around the corner.

Today, the world is smaller than it ever has been before; and it’s only getting smaller. We live in a highly globalized society, with opportunities to travel, to take in new cultures, to bounce around from city to city or country to country, with nothing tying us down and nothing standing in our way. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, today’s students will have 10 to 14 jobs by the time they’re 38 years old. Some of you might sigh depressingly and think, “no job security for me,” but I like to be glass half full; I get to work in a dozen new environments, meet a ton more people and take in an abundance of exciting experiences my grandparents couldn’t even imagine.

Armed with Blackberries in hand, our generation has the world at our fingertips. We need to embrace the uncertain future. Sure, by the beginning of May, you’ll no longer be a cool graduating Spartan on your way to success, but instead, living in your parents’ spare bedroom looking for restaurant jobs until you can find something better. But with a college education under your belt and the determination to conquer whatever obstacles are thrown at you, I am certain the world can be your playground.

So instead of rolling around in bed tonight, freaking out about paying back college loans and having nightmares about being homeless on the streets of Lansing by next fall, I challenge all of you graduating seniors to seize the day. Carpe diem. Think of your future as a novel with perfectly white, blank pages ready to be filled with exciting new tales of a young MSU grad ready to take on the world.

But I’m just a naïve junior, after all. I could be wrong.

Rob Couch is a State News guest columnist and journalism junior. Reach him at couchrob@msu.edu.