Looking Forwards - What it Means to be a College Graduate in 2025
By Mya Tran
It is Janurary 4th, 2025, as I am writing this. 2025 is a year I always heard of, but imagining it was difficult. 2025 is the year I’m supposed to graduate college, have my life planned out and on track, and be able to clearly see how the rest of my years are going to play out. Now that it’s 2025, I’m learning to have less expectations for my future selves. 2024 was one of the most life changing years of my life, for better or for worse, and it has left me scarred. It’s so hard to not be scared about the future: I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing, and mostly what I know is that I don’t know a lot of stuff.
Here’s what to expect to hear from me in 2025: I’m applying to grad school. That’s really all I have planned, but I’m grateful to at least have something. Graduate school was never a real piece of my life plan, it’s something that has found me very recently in my life. I’ve decided to take it as an excuse to finally move out of my home state of Indiana and explore the world. Now that it’s 2025, I’m looking forwards a lot. Grad school means a fresh start for me, which I have always dreamed of.
Growing up in a small college town in Indiana meant that all I ever dreamed of was leaving. I wanted to go somewhere with better food, more gay people, and less people I went to high school with. I dream of walkable cities and public transportation that doesn’t give you a headache to think about. I dream of being able to be openly gay everywhere I go— to not have to watch my mouth around my neighbors.
However, now that I’m approaching it, a fresh start is so frightening. There’s no guarantee that I get into a graduate program that is in a place that I would enjoy living in, let alone a guarantee that I get into grad school at all. I could end up somewhere I love, in a program I love, but not make enough money to be able to live there. I could end up somewhere I hate, where I have to “pack the gay in” more than I have to in my own home town. I moved to the state capital for college, but I still don’t really feel like I’ve started anew.
The future is really scary. 2025 is scary. There are a lot of scary things happening around the world, and more scary things approaching in the horizon. I suppose what I’m trying to say amidst all of this depressing ilk is that I’m afraid, but I’m living anyway. Yes, I’m scared of what the future might bring but I’m still doing to be there for it. I’m afraid of a lot of things and I don’t know a lot of things. I am going to face them. I am going to learn. That’s all we can do. 2025 is going to be a dark year for many. Much is changing, and I’m sure everything reading this feels the impending doom as time passes but I’ll tell you this— we’ll keep living. It’s been scary before and it’ll be scary again but we will keep living. We will keep looking forwards.
About the Author
Mya Tran is an incoming junior at Butler University, in Indianapolis, IN. They are currently studying English on the creative writing track and German. Growing up in a small college town with limited queer role models, Tran has spent her life with her nose in the books, looking for someone to relate to.