A sense of completion was felt as I turned the corner, walking down the hallway from my final meeting with my co-op coordinator for the very last time. I had successfully completed the two necessary work-terms for an arts co-op designation, and as a fourth-year student I found myself faced with the question, “Where would you like to go from here?”

My ambivalent response to this had me directed downstairs – to the career services centre. It was here I realized I am nowhere near ready for the Real World.

I certainly valued each of my work terms: as a marketing intern in France, and a rural support coordinator for a literacy agency in Kitchener – but how can I make use of the lessons I have learned from them?

I cannot see myself pursuing a full-time position in either direction. Have I failed the co-op program? Or has it failed me?

As the days progress, I watch fellow students and friends interview, accept job offers, and apply to post-graduate programs while I have decided to delay my graduation, take yet another leap of faith, and patiently wait for it all to make sense.

I will not attempt to discredit the co-op program, as I do believe it has value waiting for those who find it. However, in a position like my own – having completed two very distinct work-terms, not specifically related to either one of my majors – where exactly do I stand in the burning eyes of the world outside of my comfortable university bubble?

Does my vast variety of academic and work concentration appear well rounded, or undecided? Does my decision to delay graduation and pursue a postponed dream of study exchange seem ambitious, or last minute?

These questions begin to haunt me as family and friends consistently remind me of societal expectations of an individual in my position. Despite these insecurities, I go forth and make an appointment with a career counsellor and take comfort in knowing that, based on his/her apparent availability, I am not the only one with these burning questions.

And so, as I watch yet another friend sign their new health insurance benefit package, and yet another fire off one of many applications to a new program – I have decided to focus on where I find myself right now, and that is not with the graduating class of 2010.

Instead, it is that of a young Gen Yer booking a plane ticket instead of a yearbook photo, anxiously awaiting the next adventure that will surely fall into my lap, as so many have in the past four years that have so graciously led me to where I ultimately want to be: Right here.