The anxiety lives in the back of Nick Johnson’s mind.
The thoughts are mostly dormant, but anything can wake them up, like graduation — and his hurdle into the “real world” — looming closer.
Last weekend, Johnson had a nervous meltdown after not turning in a class assignment. The mistake triggered obsessions over imaginary scenarios: I’m going to fail the course; I’ll never graduate; I’ll have to become a Buddhist monk and meditate for the rest of my life.
“I’m going to be an embarrassment for my family,” he thought.
Johnson, a UF sustainability studies and geography senior, will graduate in 10 days. From April 28 to April 30, he’ll be one of 5,885 undergraduates leaving UF, with 2,443 master’s students and 420 doctoral students also graduating, wrote UF spokesperson Steve Orlando in an email.
Throughout the days of graduation ceremonies, students will walk across a stage in rented robes — some nervous, some sad and some ready to follow a clear path ahead of them.
But Johnson has no idea where his life will take him. Instead of encountering a fork in his future after college, the 22-year-old is driving down a highway with 20 exits in sight. He said he’s terrified he’ll make the wrong turn and wind up with regret. His first two years at UF were difficult, he said.
Johnson was an exploratory major who thought he’d be a lawyer, but he landed on geography and sustainability studies after sophomore year. The rest of college was a struggle with attention deficit disorder, and his final year has been exceptionally nerve-racking. He’s applied to and was rejected from two jobs for after graduation.
He’s debated joining the Peace Corps, applying for graduate school, moving to Arizona with his family for a waitering or retail job or staying in Gainesville for a similar job. He might travel the world, he said. Either Italy or New Zealand or both.
He’s thought about a corporate job, but he doesn’t think he’d fit into the environment. “There’s something dehumanizing about office jobs,” he said. “You just work as a drone, as a gear in a big machine.”
During Winter Break, he said he was officially freaking out, so he sought his parents’ advice. They surprised him by comforting Johnson, saying his anxiety was normal, and he didn’t need to rush.
So Johnson said he’s better now. Slightly.
He will cross the stage April 29, and an administrator he won’t recognize will hand him his degree. Johnson said he’ll most likely think about the lunch he’ll eat after the ceremony instead of any grand future.
But he said he will reminisce about UF. He said he’ll crave to spend one more Saturday playing saxophone with the UF Fightin’ Gator Marching Band.
He’ll yearn to sing Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” during karaoke weekends in downtown Gainesville. He’ll long to hear Century Tower’s bells.
He said he’ll think about getting a gym membership and finding a new doctor. Soon he won’t be able to play basketball at Southwest Recreation Center or visit the Counseling & Wellness Center. He said he plans to get a part-time job until he figures it out.
“I’ll just enjoy life,” Johnson said. “Take it one day at a time.”
• • •
Kaitlyn Kett isn’t worried — she has a plan.
The summer before coming to UF, the university’s Reserve Officer Training Corps offered her a contract. She never looked back. After graduation, Kett, 22, will go to Fort Lee, Virginia, for a four-month basic training program to become a military officer.
After training, she plans to return to Gainesville and enroll in a master’s program. She’s only applied to UF for graduate school, but she is confident she’ll be accepted.
In August 2014, Kett signed her contract with ROTC, a nationwide program to prepare college students for the U.S. military.
She needed the scholarship money, but she stayed for the friendships and connections. She said waking up at 6 a.m. for physical training three times a week during college was worth it.
“It’s kind of like another family for me,” she said. “The friendships and relationships that I’ve made within my past three years of being enlisted have definitely changed my
life.”
Kett said she’s never strayed from her criminology major. Her minor has always been music performance — she plays the oboe.
Her dream since she was 14 is to work for the FBI — specifically at an institution fighting against human trafficking.
She’s not worried about her future. She’s not afraid she’ll make wrong decisions.
She’s excited to have secured a source of income — she’ll work as a supply chain manager for a Jacksonville military one weekend every month.
She’s mostly financially independent from her parents (they pay her phone bill), so if she didn’t have a plan they would have been concerned. But she knows she can sustain herself.
Although she’s looking forward to graduation and her commission as a second lieutenant for completing ROTC, she said she’s not ready to leave the UF community.
“I know I can learn a lot more, and I want to learn a lot more,” Kett said.
No matter how different their plans after graduation are, both Kett and Johnson said they are certain their experience at UF was unforgettable. Kett regrets nothing, and Johnson’s regret is only over not dropping microeconomics.
“I enjoyed pretty much every day,” Johnson said.
Contact Jimena Tavel at jtavel@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @taveljimena
