New Horizons

I learned something rather fascinating today at lunch. (Well, granted, it was lunch with my dearest daddy, who is always an extremely fascinating conversationalist.) But I learned something that will definitely change the course of my life over the next year.

We were talking about my academic path, and I let my dear father know that I have enough credits to graduate a year from now. (I'm a spastic over-achiever...) However, I was not going to graduate simply because I love Purdue, it would leave me with 8 empty months before grad school,I wanted to pull up the GPA, etc., etc. My father smiled. He knows that an extra semester wouldn't do a thing to my GPA because technically the grad schools will never know about the last semester of my senior year. I won't have even started it when I turn in my applications. He also knew that I would like to go somewhere besides Purdue, and that, in all reality, it was 8 empty months of boredom that was killing my desire to graduate early. That's when he whips out this statement:

"You know, any money that you don't use for tuition could be used to travel Europe for several months."

I paused.

I did a double-take.

Could it be possible to fulfill one of my life-long dreams before I have even turned 23?

"Or, " he added, "You could save it for grad school..."

heh.

No such chance!

So now, dear reader I am looking at the very real possibilty of being college graduate in a YEAR! A YEAR!!! That's crazy. I'm nowhere near the maturity needed to handle real life. College is a very nice bubble. Granted, I'll have at least two more years of it in grad school, but still... Grad school is different from undergrad. Everyone knows that.

I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to graduate early and then spend several months in Europe. That's my new plan. Of course, that means that I'm going to need to nail down what exactly I'm going to do after I travel. I think I'll just keep as many roads open as possible. I think I shall apply to grad school in cognitive neuropsychology, speech therapy, audiology, and public relations/marketing. I shall also apply for several jobs. (Just in case I want to join the REAL real world. You know, the place where you pay bills, taxes, and there's no parental safety net? Scary, scary place...)

Wow. Isn't it amazing how many different place you can go and how many different roads you can take to get there? New horizons are a little scary. But I think I'm going to like mine...