Setting Sail

“Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.” ― Richard Halliburton

30 Days. I sit in a plastic, fold chair, surrounded by friends, some new and some old. I look to the stage; I am close enough to recognize the faces of professors I have grown to know. I fear that I will trip, I don’t know how some women can walk so poised in heels as where I look like a new born giraffe learning how to stand for the first time. My cap is snug; it will most likely ruin my hair for dinner later on. My palms are sweating as I hold my notecard that says, “Mol-lee Heb-zin-ski,” so they don’t mispronounce my name.

Our department is up next. People begin to rattle, asking their neighbors if they look okay. I check to make sure my tassel is on the correct side. My row stands up and in my head I think, “here we go.” I run through the teachers I've had, all the hours I have spent doing homework, and the people who have been there throughout the way.

I am next in line and luckily I have not tripped, yet. In the next five seconds I will shake someone’s hand and he or she will give me a diploma with no diploma actually in it. In the next five seconds, my mom will try to capture a picture on the big screen and it won’t turn out well, but I’ll thank her for trying. In the next five seconds people who don’t know me will clap for me. In the next five seconds I will graduate college.

My experience at St. Cloud has been wonderful. Our newly founded Fourth Avenue Design has allowed my classes of theory to meet application. The connections I have made in our agency will last a lifetime. Every single teammate has had an impact on myself as a leader and friend. When I look back at graduation, I will know it is more than a degree I earned.

It is the hours spent at library with Newton, it is the critiques by classmates and professors, it is the bicycling to and from class, it is the running on lack of sleep, it is the pack a breakfast/lunch/dinner kind of day, it is the I wish I had started this sooner, it is the taking off a day because you need it, it is the living off of pizza, it is the laughing when you’re not supposed to be, and it is the experience I won't forget.

It's okay to be nervous, but don't let it hold you back from the world.

Till next time,

Molly Hebzynski

CEO I mshebzynski@gmail.com