The End of the Line
by Matthew Rochkind
November 1999

I don't know where I'll be next year, so quit asking. Oh, and one more thing, I won't be in school, and probably won't have a real well-paying job either. Does that make you uncomfortable? Does it make you jealous? What does it make me?

I'm graduating from college this year, and it feels more like a discharge from a holding cell than an accomplishment. At least 8 out of 12 months for 15 years of my life have been dominated by school. I've been following a well-beaten path from the beginning, up and up the academic incline, holidays and summers providing brief respites while I trudged through the thicket. All along I was an exemplary student, settling for nothing less than scholastic perfection. Year after year the classes piled up, a heap of effort and exams and knowledge. Now I stand atop it all, on the brink of something new, and it gives me chills.

I felt a similar feeling last summer, when I found myself one July day at the Cliffs of Moher on the western coast of Ireland. It's a breathtaking landscape, and a huge tourist attraction. People love to look over cliffs. Green fields snuggle up to the grand precipice, and as I approached the edge I saw people lying on their stomachs, peeking over. I began to feel my heart pounding, as small steps brought me nearer the edge. Looking ahead toward the distant horizon I imagined I could see America. Soon I realized why so many had been lying down and not standing. My feet wouldn't bring me close enough to the edge to see over. Something kept me back. So then I too dropped to my belly, and scooted forward until my head draped over the side. I looked down and my eyes widened as I saw the blue sea crashing against the rocks over 600 feet below. It was amazing: the long drop, the breeze strong and alive, the birds soaring and spiraling down below me near the cliff's face.

What was that something that kept me from walking right up to the edge, and to lean over and look down? Maybe I would lose my balance, and fall. Or, maybe I would jump. Not from suicidal tendencies, but from that impulsive, adventurous urge to be free, to experience that fall, to know that I could jump, that I'm ultimately in control of my fears, the fear of death, the fear of the future, the fear of being unbound. Lying down grounded me, made me less likely to indulge that urge. I knew it as the same urge I feel to jump over the railing when I cross a bridge. The same urge to swerve into oncoming traffic when I drive. The same urge that makes me want to go sky diving. The same urge that has me giddy to graduate.

So here I am sticking my head out past graduation day, and I know that this time I'm going over. I imagine thousands of graduating seniors are experiencing the same thing, and that countless individuals the world over are facing the same mix of fear and liberation as they change jobs, change professions, start families, move across the country, across the world. There are so many moments of change in life, but I am at my first. For the first time the entire composition of my life will be transformed. School will no longer be the frame in which I live. In fact, there will be no frame.

I ask myself, how can it be? Every now and then I run into a high school class mate, and by and large they're all surprised that my academic career ends here. I was so good at everything, how can I not be a professional, they say. "I had you pegged for a PhD," one of my friends said. Are they right? I've believed that for a long time, that because I was able to excel in school, that's what I should do. Does abandoning school mean that I will be wasted potential, crumbling away with each day? I hope not. I've been a slave to that potential forever. This advanced class, that assessment test, this scholarship application, let's see how much we can accumulate. For some people a Bachelor's degree will be no different, just another stopping point, more prestigious bulk on the transcript. This is it for me, the edge. No more climbing. I'm ready to glide, to jump, to plummet, to step forward. Sure, it's scary, but it's exhilarating.

No doubt everybody experiences this heavy feeling of transition at some point. The moment one sees that his life hasn't been his own. The point where circumstances and personal conviction bond such that one can make the brave and fearful departure from that life. As for those who never make such a realization, well, I'm not sure if they're the lucky ones or the damned. I feel lucky to have reached such a point, but I'm the ignorant one who doesn't know how harrowing the trail ahead is.

It doesn't have to be so dramatic though. The facts, or what are more likely my justifications, are these: I am a graduating college senior with no plans to further my formal education. I am interested in learning, but I've recognized that earning good grades, and the threat of poor ones, has unfortunately displaced my appetite for knowledge as my foremost motivation to read and study. I feel chained to a certain curriculum from which I can't deviate. Though I am interested in my courses, the competition and evaluation sucks all the fun out of attending class. Sound familiar? So I'm leaving. Is it a cop out? I'm getting out because it's not fun? Will work be fun? Is there anything besides school and work?

Still, if it were that simple, lots of kids don't like school? Why didn't I leave earlier? Law only keeps me there until age 16, I'm five years overdue. What allows me to make this choice now when I couldn't before?

A college degree is a more acceptable point from which to jump than any previous point. Acceptable in that vague sense, in reference to those often-cited never-specified societal, communal pressures. They vary by class or other factors, perhaps, but my point is that all along I've been pushed by an unidentifiable voice telling me Intelligent kids get good grades, go to college, and in doing so make their families proud. A college degree is a plateau, as is a high school diploma. For some, even a Masters degree is only a plateau below the ascent to a doctoral summit that bestows ultimate knowledge and credentials. People have jumped off the ladder at all these points, and several in between. I felt expected to graduate college, but nothing more. So I will. My parents both went to law school, but my older brother did not, and perhaps that showed me it was alright. But I would feel like I was disappointing family, and by extension cutting myself short, if I left before. I need the degree as the last notch on my belt, the one that finally lets me run free without worrying that my pants might fall down.

For me the college degree is the summit. I have neither the entrepreneurial ambition nor the confident conviction to pursue a specific occupation to confront the world with only a high school degree. Many people do, and many don't have the chance to go to a university. Maybe I would have felt bad not taking advantage of such a privilege. But really, a four-year university degree seems to be the standard for at least my middle slice of the country. In the eyes of many the college degree is the boundary between "educated" and "uneducated," and the qualification that opens up many doors. Perhaps I needed that superficial label to boost my confidence, the same way I sought good grades for so long to prove my overwhelming worth. Now I'm giving up all those boosters and symbols.

What will I replace them with? I plan on spending the summer after graduation backpacking through the wilderness of Alaska and the western U.S., and after my daily planner is blank. Every avenue appears open, there is no date I need to return, no place I have to be. I can choose any location and any occupation that strikes me. And I can always switch. That versatility and unboundedness is freedom, but is freedom a short-lived thrill? Uncertainty is acceptable now, when, after being inside for so long the outside looks like heaven. But will I be satisfied with my choice further down the road? As I search for a new path and accept instability, I am opening the door for that search to become a permanent state. In a way I'll be standing for myself now, so even as I'm anxious to get out of school, I'm filled with a harrowing fear. School is a safe place to be. A student's purpose is clear. As most questionnaires will evidence, Student is an occupation. With no graduate school ahead to funnel me into a career everything will be up to me. My English and Spanish majors don't flow into a natural job pool, and although I'm told that there are many fields open to me, writing skills are important they say, it's hard to be so confident.

Lots of students know what they want to do. They interview for jobs that will start paying them good money right out of college. Or they go on to grad school, from where they'll hop right into a job track. I may also find my calling, but who's to say when or how? I want a family, and a stable job with reliable income seems like the cornerstone to that plan. Nobody worries about a 21 year old without direction, but a 30 year old? And if I'm 40 and still wandering? Then how much will I envy those who chose a well lit path and followed it to the end? Or won't I? There's no way of knowing, and that's the scariest part of all. I've never lived with that kind of freedom before, and maybe I don't know how to use it. But I suppose in leaving academia I'm choosing to obey one rule: if something isn't working, try something else.

Sure, there will always be pressures, comparisons, evaluations. If I could escape the pressure of constantly comparing myself, measuring up to the standards of excellence, I wonder if I'd be lost. My choices may be unlimited, but while that opens infinite doors to success, there are just as many doors to failure. But I'm not so worried about that. Things are easy for me now, I am young, have a supporting family, and the jump I'm making now is shared by lots of people. It may feel like a jump because the future is unknown, but it is almost a safe jump. Not everybody can say that about their decisions. They have their own choices to make, their own treks into new territory. But one way or the other, standing at the edge everyone must go somewhere.

Maybe to be a middle-aged vagabond isn't very appealing, but the other side of that question is equally important. If I do find a career, a new way of life, and if at 50 I feel the way I feel now about school, what will I do? If my motivations are withered and deformed, and I feel shackled by an unrewarding routine, will I still be able to jump? I should hope the next time I face such a cliff, no matter how old I am, I will be so lucky.

So for now I allow myself to make this leap. I'm glad I've come down the path I have. It was fulfilling a duty, it was honoring the privilege I've had to go to college at all, and it surely taught me things. One can't help but to learn, and I'm excited to find what form my education will take in the future. For once I will not be on a path, I will be hacking my way through the open spaces ahead, finding my own unique peaks to summit. My adventures will no longer be insured by the knowledge that in time I must return to the routine of school. Leaving this familiar world of tests and lectures is completely liberating, and completely terrifying. Whether I ever attend school again, and return to that routine, I don't know. I don't rule it out. I don't rule anything out.