At my high school graduation, I cried and hugged my friends and really felt that an era of my life had passed. The recognition of an ending time is a heavy weight for a 17-year-old, and I thought it would be equal, if not greater, when I left college at 21. The closer I get to my Binghamton graduation — to leaving the city that has been my home for four years, the friends and residents who have become a social circle, the professors who have helped me through some really tough times — the more I realize that I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.

I’m not saying that Binghamton doesn’t hold a lot of special memories for me, or that I didn’t enjoy my time here, but I knew when I chose to go to college here that it would be strictly a four-year stay.

The trouble with college is just a small scale model of the problem with life: Whatever you learn, you wish you knew it a few years ago. In the practical sense, this includes knowing how to go through Academic A, Academic B, the Student Wing and Lecture Hall without going outside, how to print to the PODS computers from your dorm room, and that you can get condoms in the RA office, Health Services or a vending machine in your lobby.

You also learn things not necessarily connected to your collegiate career in the academic sense, but the sappy, emotional, self-awareness way. Unless you’re in SOM or Watson, it’s pretty obvious college doesn’t prepare you for a career anymore, so at the very least take your philosophy classes to heart and know thyself.

And once you know that, make peace with yourself. I have realized I’m a spoiled, selfish, self-indulgent person prone to extreme procrastination and occasional bouts of melodrama. And I’m OK with that.

Knowledge and self-confidence comes at a price. By the time you graduate, you know people who have graduated, who hate their lives and their jobs and the fact that they’re economically forced to live with their parents. Freshmen still have enough optimism to dream big. Senior year really takes it out of you. Nonetheless, one day you’ll be telling your own children they can be astronauts and presidents and movie stars. Don’t worry though, some bitter professor, ancient admissions committee or cynical New Yorker will set them straight.

One last note: For God’s sake, lose your virginity in college. Lose it in high school, if you can. Not only does it get harder to get rid of as you get older, but your expectations rise. You are going to be very disappointed. Half the time people have sex is just for the story anyway.

Of course, four years does fly by, and I think at the end if you’re alright with the fact that it’s over, if you’re excited about the phase of your life that’s about to begin, then you’re an adult. I really feel there’s not much else I can learn here. Will I miss my friends? The fact that the bank, post office and library are all a 10 minute walk away? Super Wal-Mart? The freedom to leave all the lights on in my dorm because I’m not paying for electricity anyway? Sure, but I consider it a trade-off for getting away from the professor I hate, the professor who hits on me, Sodexo, the clock tower and the old townie chicks who frequent Downtown in 80’s dresses (actually, I may miss that last one).

It’s time for new people, new locales and new health insurance. The time of tiny apartments and weddings and credit card debt and dinner parties is nearly upon me, and I have to be honest: I am ready. Not at all prepared, but excited all the same.