Ryan Chartrand“A step toward my future.” I have been trying to embrace this phrase as my personal mantra every time I feel reluctant about graduating (every day now as June 16 nears). Most often I find myself overwhelmed by what the future will bring. Graduation is a giant stride to the next step of my life and future endeavors, but a leap that is anxiety-laden. I will be taking the paces soon (gulp, almost like walking the plank) and I am realizing I don’t want to leave Cal Poly.
For those of us not on the six-year plan, leaving Cal Poly seems an all-too-sudden reality. As graduation nears, I find myself dragging my feet around campus, an ironic end to my past four years of purposefully trekking from class to class, class to coffee, library to The Avenue; from paying parking tickets at the University Police Department to photocopying notes at DRC. I have run to class, power-walked Poly Canyon, skipped out of a final exam, been led to the Health Center, sleep walked to Julian’s, and stumbled back into the dorms.
My life in San Luis Obispo has been centered and created on this campus. Heck, when all my freshman friends were dying to move off campus, I was praying to get into Cerro Vista to continue my college days “living on.”
I have become possessive of the landscape, the buildings, and the people I see every day on the 155 acres of the “campus core” I traipse. I even have what I consider to be “my chair” on the second floor of the library. I feel at home on campus. I feel part of a community of students, individually pursuing their own lofty life goal, but unitarily dreaming of the future, what we each can and will contribute to our world.
I accomplish my most productive dreaming while perusing campus (iPod in place, Tina Turner full blast) and waving to friends. On campus, I feel inspired to achieve everything I dream. I don’t want to leave my safe Cal Poly community (which I swear has a rainbow arching from “P” to the PAC after every rain – it’s utopia!) and pioneer an uncertain path beyond campus.
Like you, I have napped in the University Union, cheered at the baseball games, sunbathed on Dexter Lawn, and shook my sillies out at the ASI Children’s Center (well, maybe only the staff do that). The path between Perimeter and Inner Perimeter roads has been my sole route to all destinations. What will happen when I venture out of the perimeter? What will that look like?
Future forecast still hazy in Destination Unknown, I adorn my shoes and prepare my feet to strut across stage, an uncertain tread away from campus but a step toward my future.
Danielle Martin is a pyschology senior.