The Lack of Nostalgia in Recent Graduates

Just yesterday I graduated high school. It was one of the quickest, biggest moments in my life so far. Not only did I feel like I blinked and it was over, but I didn’t feel the nostalgia and emotions that so many told me I’d feel.

Why? Two reasons: One, I had been treated like a college student all four years of my high school life for being in the advanced classes, and two, because even though I had come to known and befriend many students, teachers, and faculty, I realized I am not saying goodbye to them, not truly. They are all still going to be here this entire summer of 2013 and they are staying close to home for college, and even if they aren’t, we’ll keep in touch through texting or social media. This shows two things; college tuition and costs are too high for many to leave their home states, and that the advancement in communication technology has made it harder to miss people the normal way.

Seeking higher education after high school has become tougher for the new generations. Our parents and grandparents before us didn’t have it as hard. Not only have college tuitions’ increased, the amount of fees and other expenses have too. Normally one had to pay for books and spending, but now colleges have added fees for trivial things that should be free when being accepted into the university.

I had to pay a fee just for orientation at UMBC, whether I went or not. Why? I have no idea other than it covered the day’s expenses, which also seemed pretty unnecessary in my opinion, but then again I don’t know what else goes into it all.

My point though is that we as students and even families pay and extensive amount of small fees that soon add up to sometimes a third of tuition costs, which is ridiculous and a definite limiting factor to reaching our goals. If we can’t afford to do what we want, then we’re forced to settle.

How can we grow up being told to dream big when dreaming big is for those who can afford the costs? Therefore many of my friends were forced to change their college plans and even put a hold on further education until they had enough money to go through with it.

Though, not all of them felt they couldn’t go through with it. Many intelligent and brave souls who earned enough scholarship money or were confident in their career choice to not fret too much about paying off loans decided the university life far from home was the best decision for them, and I applaud them for it. They are attempting to do a feat that seems so difficult for so many fresh students, and if they succeed, they will have beaten the odds. This makes them some of the greatest people I have come to befriend, thusly, I will miss them when I can’t see them or talk to them, but not as much as I would have if cellphones and the internet didn’t exist.

At the age of 14, when you’re entering high school and still going through the toughest biological transformations, it is harder to make new friends and hold on to the ones you already have, but this past decade, making friends has changed with the advancement in technology.

Friendship has evolved. I can now become close to someone by texting them than by seeing them in person. That element allows me to never lose contact with that person and remain friends for many years, because texting, like pop music, will not go away after being introduced, it only changes.

In 2005, Facebook came to be, making instant messaging between people a thing of the past. Now Facebook allows people of all ages to stay in sync whether they are right next-door or a million miles away. When my older sister graduated high school in 2006, she did not have Facebook, and neither did her friends, but since getting one a few years after she graduated, she is still finding many of her class peers on their and catching up with them before her reunion in four years. But because my graduating class is that of the social media age, we don’t need to search and catch up. We might not even need a class reunion, because those we want to catch up with are already a click away.

There is no more mystery left between classmates and their lives to come. If someone you knew in high school truly cared about what you did, then they can easily find you on any social media site or hold onto your number or email to keep him or her updated.

I won’t be missing high school for my friends or for the way life was. I’ll miss it for my age and only that is what is left now that I am leaving, except for the building itself, which isn’t something worth missing. The class of 2013 may not be able to have or hold the emotions and nostalgia the same way as the class of 2003, but we have our own way of holding onto that huge part of our lives known as high school.