Charlotte Shields-Rossi | a&e editor

I had been putting off applying to graduate for a few weeks. It felt like the final step in something I had been working on for 3-and-a-half years. I questioned if I was ready. But ready or not, I couldn’t hide from the inevitable for long.

Everything must come to an end after all.

So last week, I logged into my Duquesne portal and did it — a clerical juncture.

It only took five minutes. There was no fanfare (I was expecting some sort of digital celebration. Maybe, e-confetti?)

Instead, all I was left with was the realization that things were getting very serious, and a whole new chapter of my life was coming — quicker than I had hoped.

As of now, I still have 101 days until I walk across the stage and grab my diploma. I still need to buy a graduation dress, start job hunting and give my resume a much needed tune up. It seems like a lot of days when you say it out loud. I have a whole three digits to get my stuff together, but it also feels nauseatingly quick.

I think it’s natural that when beginning to close one chapter of your life, you start to reflect on that passage. So before thinking about my future — buying my graduation dress, job hunting and giving my resume a tune up — I decided to reflect on my past.

If time is linear, I started college a little over three years ago. I was 18 years old, a freshman, living in a dorm room with my best friend Hannah, majoring in undecided sciences. I’m now 21, a senior, living in an apartment with my best friends Hannah and Ellie, majoring in journalism. And as of last week I am — if everything goes to plan — graduating in December, just seven days shy of my 22nd birthday.

Before I came to college, adults in my life kept telling me about how transformative it is, and how much you will grow in four years (3-and-a-half in my case). Back then I was skeptical. But now I have lived it, and I’m inclined to agree.

It’s clear to me how different I am from my teenage self. She is unrecognizable to me now. This is a good thing — I think. If you dropped an 18- or 19-year-old Charlotte into the wild with no college safety net, I would certainly be flailing around unsure of how to survive.

I was lost. I didn’t know my strengths or weaknesses. I had no clue what I wanted to do in the future. I really didn’t know who I was. Gradually, I found what I was passionate about, my future beyond college became clearer — but no less daunting —and I finally grew into myself.

No 21-year-old has everything figured out, and I’m not an exception to that rule. And I don’t think I will ever truly be prepared for the future. But unlike a teenage me, I think I’m as self assured as I need to be to take the next step, across the Cooper Fieldhouse graduation stage, that is.

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu