I Graduate This Fall
You never know just how much decisions you make years earlier will come into play in the years that follow.
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I like checking things off my to-do list. Each day, I have a very long list of things I have to get done. For some, I use parentheses if it requires multiple checks throughout the day like things I need to read and posts I need to make on Twitter. Mostly, though, I have a tiny circle to the left of the assignment that I use to keep me moving in the right direction each and every day. With my trusted green G-2 Pilot pen in tow, the rush I get when I make that green checkmark in that aforementioned tiny circle is indescribable.
I like being productive.
I like that to-do lists keep me grounded and present. Throughout the day, I don’t have time to think big-picture as much. It is quite easy to get lost in all the different things I’m tackling throughout the course of each day. As a chronic over-thinker, I shudder a bit when I consider life without my life preserver.
Graduate school complicated this, though. You do not finish graduate school in a day. It is not something you can add to your daily to-do list. It is a different kind of challenge. It is one that scared me immensely when I was first considering continuing my education in the summer of 2020.
It was also kind of exhilarating.
The whole process of applying, reaching out to some of my favorite professors from undergrad for letters of recommendation. It reenergized me in a lot of ways at a time in my life where I really needed that.
Then, that feeling of acceptance when the University of Tennessee sent me that email to tell me that I got into the school’s graduate communications program.
Shit. I’ll never forget it.
One of the many cool things I’ve learned while doing premarital counseling with my fiancé is what our love languages are. I’ve learned that I am a “words of affirmation” person, so as I’m writing this it comes as no surprise that Tennessee accepting me into their graduate program struck a cord with me. There was this overwhelming sense of joy that I felt at that moment in the summer of 2020. My academic career has been more windy than I, or my parents, would have expected, but that is how life goes. I was not ready for graduate school five years ago, but I was ready for graduate school two years ago.
I remember thinking about where I wanted to apply to graduate school two summers ago. I remember talking to a lot of folks for advice. I remember doing my research on various schools, but I felt this tug with Tennessee. My conversation with my now-advisor had quite the effect on me. A conversation with my late grandfather had quite the effect on me. Tennessee felt right. Leaving Atlanta felt right.
I was right.
It’s funny how life works sometimes, though. I am getting married exactly one month from the time of this writing. One month. That’s wild to think about. I get to marry my best friend on September 17, which does not happen without graduate school. It does not happen without my family pull to Knoxville. My dad being born here. So many of my uncles going to school here. My grandparents and their children residing here for a time. It does not happen without those photos of me on the field at Neyland Stadium in my University of North Georgia crewneck on the field with the Tennessee football team and cheerleaders surrounding me. Doing my undergrad at the University of Nort Georgia and my graduate degree at the University of Tennesse just felt right.
Did I mention I was right?
Graduate school started it all. Without graduate school, who knows how these last two years unfold? I know they unfold without my fiancé. That much I do know. And if you were to tell me that I would be a married man before I completed graduate school here in Knoxville, I would have laughed in your face.
And yet, here we are.
Graduate school took me on a different life path. One that I’ll be forever grateful for. Everything ends, though. This fall, graduate school ends for me.
With that, I am finally comfortable to look ahead a little bit. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Graduate school did not make my daily to-do list, it was a big-picture challenge. I could not simply check it off my to-do list on a Tuesday afternoon. It challenged me in a totally different way that I did not know I needed at the time. I could not think about all of the classes I had yet to take or all of the papers I had yet to write, I had to keep my focus on the here-and-now.
We’re almost done, though. In a month, I’ll be a married man. In four months, I’ll be a man with a master’s degree. Without the latter, I’m not the former.
Life, man.
I’ll tell you what.
Chase Thomas is the Sports Renaissance Man, Atlanta Sports Guy and Vol For Life. He is a graduate student at the University of Tennessee and resides in Knoxville, TN. Chase obtained his undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of North Georgia. He has written for a variety of publications that include Outsider, SB Nation, VICE Sports, SI’s The Cauldron, Cox Media Group & ESPN’s TrueHoop Network. You can email him at chasethomaspodcast[at]gmail.