Education may not end here

By Jane Muhlstein

And so we have reached the end. One year ago this week, I popped into your newspaper every week as scene editor. But now it is time for me to go.

It has been a quite a crazy busy year. A year of Iraqi elections, a new pope, a Britney Spears pregnancy and a third season of "The Simple Life."

While giving up the newspaper gig will be an adjustment, my classmates and I will soon have bigger changes to which we will have to become acclimated. New places, new jobs, new friends and new problems. Then a brave few of us will be opting for a change the rest of you would call crazy: new school.

For me, this year has felt like a weird remake of senior year of high school. Colorful brochures started arriving in my mailbox last fall, tempting me to consider schools I had never heard of in places I had no interest in going. I had to take a standardized test to which neither the SAT or ACT could hold a candle (picture five hours stuck in a room with the biggest overachievers at their respective school, nearly crying over deceptively named logic games).

Then acceptance (and one rejection) letters started to arrive. These were followed by scholarship offers, letters and phone calls from students and professors trying to entice me to join their team. Finally came financial aid offers and last-minute pleas by way of invitations to admitted student days.

Never during this whole tiring process did I fully appreciate the reality of another round of full-time school. My plan was very theoretical. But the other day, I was leafing through a mailing from the school I ultimately chose, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I am about to embark on another six semesters of school before I can get out into the real world.

I've loved college, but did I just sign on for another three years of this academia?

My nervous breakdown was exacerbated by the fact that I am starting with one class over the summer. Translation: I start school again nine days after graduation.

I think I'll make it. And while law school is supposed to be the end of all things good, I'm holding out hope for a social life.

Sadly, I will not be making it a seven-year Santa Clara stretch. But this fall will mark year No. 18 of Catholic school.

* You can no longer contact Jane Muhlstein at (408) 554-4546, but she can still be reached at jmuhlstein@scu.edu.