I started university in 2005, and planned to graduate in 2009--wait, it’s 2009 this year…doesn’t that mean I’m supposed to graduate and…sniffle…leave the safety of being an undergraduate?? As in, make a decision about my future?

Over the past few months, as I’m sure most other senior have been, I’ve been stressing out about what I’d be doing after graduation. Because I’m studying abroad during the spring semester of my senior year, the credits won’t be applied to my A&M degree in time for a May graduation, meaning I’ll be done in August. To make the general unease about graduating more intense, I also had to worry about whether or not I was staying in the United Kingdom or flying home in August to graduate and staying in Texas, as well as coordinate all my graduation from across the Atlantic.

I had a few ladles in the pot, from taking a gap year to applying to the Peace Corps, but my Plan A was attending graduate school at the University of Glasgow for an MSc (Master of Science) in Human Rights and International Politics—and I recently found out that I got in!!

So, I will officially be moving to Glasgow at some point during the summer and getting ready to be a graduate student. The program is a year long, so I’ll be finishing my MSc in September 2010. Glasgow is only about 40 miles away from Edinburgh, but is such a completely different type of city. Edinburgh may be the capital of Scotland, but we only have about 500,000 people—Glasgow has over 2 MILLION. This also means that I’ll be changing my city label from “Edinburgher” to “Glaswegian,” or “Wegie” for short. I’m so excited to start graduate work, and really focus on my specific interest—what’s so intriguing about this particular program is that it addresses human rights from both the legal and political viewpoints, which leaves a ton of options open for me for post-academic work. I’m not sure where I’ll be living in Glasgow, or when I’m moving, but I know I’m going!

In other news, I’m in a bit of a limbo at the moment. The University of Edinburgh has finished giving lectures for the year, so I’m completely done with undergraduate lectures. Here’s the funny part—four weeks from now, finals begin: a month and a half of them. I have four weeks off, then four tests over three weeks. Not only do I have finals from this semester, but a final for my year long course, and a final from a course that ended last semester! I may have four weeks off from lectures, but I certainly have a lot of work to do. This type of format is so unfamiliar to me. Back home, we have finals for each semester at the end of the semester that the course was given in--these finals are also close to the end of the semester and are only given over four days. It's very difficult to revise for exams that, in some cases, are six weeks away yet I have all the information that I need.

Prediction: Lots of hours in the library for me. But even though I’ve got a ton of work ahead of me, at least I have a plan for next year! For all you Aggie seniors—if you haven’t found a job or grad school or a plan yet, keep looking! Something will work out, and once you’ve made a decision, life gets just a little bit easier.