This post was submitted by matt

Yesterday, I submitted my final assignments. Tomorrow, I’ll be wearing a black robe (and peacock blue hood) while the band plays “Land of Hope and Glory.” Today, I’m meeting my parents at the airport and preparing my house for my program’s congratulatory pot luck.

I have survived a Herculean push to complete final papers and find a job, and now the earlier fears I faced have waned. For nineteen years, I have been in school. And now, I find myself hours from my final graduation, hours away from the real world. But now, the light at the end of the tunnel is too bright. What the future holds I cannot tell.

But as much as commencement is about looking toward the future, it is also by its nature about retrospection.

The world was a much different place when I first stepped across the threshold of a tiny red-brick schoolhouse. This place, though I didn’t yet know it, had been the center of my small rural community for more than a century. As it would happen, my education would outlast even this school. After over 130 years of educating young minds, my elementary school closed at the end of the 2006-07 school year. I went to the farewell celebration only a few hours after graduating from Georgia Tech.

But the close of Buffington was far away indeed when I started Kindergarten in August of 1990. It was a close-knit community and an even closer-knit student body. My entire school had fewer than 250 students in seven grades. By the time I was a freshman at Tech, my Calculus I class alone had more than that many students.

And a few short months after I finished my undergraduate degree in Public Policy, I left my home state. For the first time, I found myself living in a new state, in a new city far from the rolling foothills I had long called home. I found myself surrounded by new people, new scenes, and new experiences. And I regret nothing. But I think back on Atlanta far more fondly than I thought I would.

It seems so long ago. I’ve been in so many classrooms, taken so many notes, written so many reports, that they all seem to bleed together in my mind. But many memories are still clear. Today, all those memories are with me.

I could never have foreseen my trek from that first day in Kindergarten. I have no idea what the future holds now. But I do know that I have achieved a life-long dream. And I have no regrets. In fact, I’m quite satisfied with my life to date. And thinking back on my education brings so many smiles to my face.

But it’s also hard to believe that nineteen years of work is coming to a close. I can’t imagine life without school. Perhaps the words of the second verse of my high school alma mater can do these feelings justice:

Now the time is drawing nigh,

When we must bid adieu;

Leaving friends we dearly love,

To walk amidst the new.

Of course, I was glad to get out of high school. I’m not sure that I’m ready to leave graduate school. But I suppose I can’t stay in the ivory tower forever.

I want to thank my TNG family for sharing the last few pages of this chapter of my life. But don’t worry, although I’m starting a new chapter, Dispatches will continue. I’ll be staying right here in Washington for the foreseeable future and I hope you all will continue to share your thoughts and stories with me as I share them with you.

---

First time here? See what we're all about... Get involved... Send us a tip!...

---