Editor's Note: This is the sixth in a series of journal entries written by Heidi Lynch as she reflects on her undergraduate educational experiences. Part 5 was published on October 13, 2005.
5/23/06
The Beginning of the End
My last journal entry left off with my thoughts about finishing my time abroad in Berlin. This entry, on the other hand, deals with a much bigger transition: the end of my time as a Penn State student. When I returned to Penn State the second semester of my junior year after being in Germany for several months, I felt as though I was entering the home stretch of college. It seemed that in no time at all, I would graduate and begin the next stage of my life. Indeed, the spring semester flew by while I was busy taking German and political science classes, working part-time at a dining hall, and participating in the Political Science Association.
After the spring 2005 semester, I moved home to Pittsburgh for the summer to intern at the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh. My experience at the Ireland Institute, a small non-profit organization that promotes economic development and conflict resolution in Northern Ireland and Ireland, was superb not only because I gained insight into the non-profit side of international relations, but also because I learned a great deal about visa and immigration issues. My main responsibility was an in-depth project dealing with student visas, which are crucial to the Institute's student exchange programs. My time with the Ireland Institute sparked my interest in immigration and asylum law, which I had never before considered as a career option. Immigration law seemed to be a career that would engage my interest in international relations in a way that could also make a valuable impact on people's lives. While I didn't want to go to law school immediately after finishing college, I decided at the end of the summer that I would take the LSAT and look into law schools.
In August, I came back to State College both nervous and excited for my senior year. I was looking forward to spending one last year with my friends, but I also knew that this year would be busy with classes, activities, job searching, and work. Unlike many of my peers, I was not exactly sure yet what I would be doing after I graduated from college. However, I didn't let my uncertainty keep me from setting ambitious goals to accomplish by the end of fall semester.
I wanted to do well in my courses in German and international politics, remain active in the Political Science Association, and continue my job at McElwain dining hall. In addition to these existing commitments, though, I also had new responsibilities that were unique to my senior year. As a senior in the Schreyer Honors College, I had to complete an honors thesis—an in-depth, original research project. Inspired by my study in Germany, I decided to write my thesis on how German local governments responded when incidents of anti-foreigner violence erupted in their communities. I also planned to devote significant time to figuring out what my life would be like after graduation. This included not only a job search for positions in government, non-profit organizations, multinational corporations, and other organizations, but also exploring my options for law and graduate schools and studying for the LSATs several hours a week. Finally, I also accepted a second job translating lecture notes from German for a professor of advanced economics. While I knew that my other commitments were already a great deal to manage, I felt that I couldn't pass up such a fantastic opportunity to use my foreign language skills.
So, clearly, my fall semester was a busy one. I had many different objectives for the semester, and instead of choosing one or a few of them to focus on, I decided to pursue them all. While seemingly harmless in theory, I soon realized that the “doing it all” strategy was much more challenging than I had bargained for. My days, weeks, and months became a blur of hectic, sometimes frantic, activity. Classes, thesis research, extracurricular involvement, working twenty-five hours per week between two jobs, preparing for the LSATs, and searching for a job after graduation left little time for food and sleep, let alone spending time with friends. Although it was difficult, I managed to balance these conflicting commitments through the end of the fall semester. However, when I finally retreated home for winter break, I was exhausted from the strain of carrying such a heavy load through the fall.
At home, I had time to think about the successes and low points of the previous semester. On one hand, I had really enjoyed the various activities I was involved in. My translating job and thesis research were exciting new opportunities. On the other hand, I had clearly been living at an unsustainable pace and still had no job lined up and no plans for after graduation. Looking back, I realized that it was unrealistic to think that I could pursue so many time-consuming interests at the same time. A piece of advice from my mom seemed to sum up my situation perfectly: “You can have it all, Heidi, but sometimes you can't have it all at the same time.”
With this advice in mind, I decided that the second semester of my senior year had to be very different from the first semester if I was to keep my sanity. I planned to streamline my list of commitments so that I could enjoy the last few months I had in Happy Valley. The “beginning of the end” had been a rough road to travel: I wanted the final months of my college career to be great.
—hjl