I learned a lot of things during my last semester of college.

I learned that I’m tired of school. This Herculean college trek that I’ve taken – four schools in three states – has begun to take its toll. I’m worn out, man. My brain hurts.

But I’ve also learned that I’m going to miss it. The routine I’ve had almost everyday for the past 5 years will be gone; the relatively moderate level of responsibly that I’ve encountered will evaporate. And what will that be replaced with?

Well, I don’t know.

As far as the professional arena goes, I’m not even a contestant. I don’t have a solid plan. I have a liquid plan. Okay, more like a green, sticky amorphous plan.

But that’s all right. College wasn’t about having tunnel vision towards a job – ignoring all the glitz and glamour that comes with being a young, empowered college kid.

That’s how I started, seeking fame as a college athlete. My first stop was Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan. After a typical mildly successful senior season a lot of small town kids experience, I signed as a running back, filled with feelings of under appreciation from schools that had ignored my skill set. This frustration bordered on anger, which intensified when I was redshirted, and I entered practice with a gigantic chip on my shoulder. That chip was promptly and violently removed by a group of even more gigantic men.

So football didn’t work out, and neither did Pittsburg. Once I stopped playing ball, I didn’t want to be in Kansas anymore. But it wasn’t a total waste. I learned that I wasn’t a college athlete, I managed to have some fun here and there, and I met a guy on the team that would become one of my best friends.

So I knew I wanted to leave. But where to? Since I had been at Pitt a year and a half, and since my intent to transfer was extremely short notice, I ended up moving back home to West Plains, Mo. and went to the two-year college there for a semester. It might be a little more obvious what I learned here.

I figured out that I wanted to get back into a school that wasn’t in the same place I had been for most of my life. Been there, done that. But I had nowhere in mind, nowhere I was considering. That was until one night when I got a call from my buddy who was on a golf recruiting trip at a college in Batesville.

“Dude,” he said over the phone, “you have to come here with me.”

“Is there a journalism major there?,” I asked.

The words surprised me; they just slipped right out. I knew I wanted to change majors, at Pittsburg I had majored in nursing – I’ll pause while you snicker. I’d been thinking about what I wanted to do, and I guess journalism was at the front of my mind that night.

“Um, I think they have a journalism concentration,” he said.

Good enough for me.

I went to Lyon College that next semester with him and another buddy and preceded to have a blast. When people ask me what my favorite college was on my Midwest Tour, I don’t hesitate with an answer. Lyon was fantastic. You’d work your butt off Monday through Friday afternoon, then it was time to let loose. Every weekend there was something happening; every weekend was more fun than the previous.

But it was expensive. Very expensive. And when my parents divorced after my first and only semester there, I wanted to go home. I felt obligated to be around and help out however I could.

I went back to West Plains and got a job at Great Rivers Distributing, a local Anheuser-Busch delivery company. I had worked there before during a few summers, and I knew the guys and knew they would hire me. A few months on the job and I had another decision to make.

Should I stay or should I go?

I was making decent money, enjoyed my job and was around beer all day. Not a bad gig for a 21 year old. But alas, the pull of academia was too much. Or was it my mother’s constant nagging in my ear? Either way, I ended up at the University of Arkansas, again at the request of my aforementioned buddy, who had skipped out on Lyon too and was already in Fayetteville.

Man I’m impressionable.

I knew journalism was what I wanted to pursue, and the professors here confirmed that. They taught me what I needed to know, what I wanted to know and what I didn’t even know I needed to know. It’s one heck of a department, filled with caring, capable and compassionate people.

And I don’t care what anyone says – Bret Schulte is the best damn teacher I’ve ever had.

So now it’s here. I’m only a couple weeks away from leaving the friendly confines of college and heading into the dangerous domain of professional pursuit, and as mentioned before, with only a skeleton of the traditional post-college plan, which consists of finding a job while still enrolled – sacrificing location for expectancy – beginning that job posthaste and promptly suffering from a combination of homesickness and disdain.

Seeing this model far too often, I began to understand this: It’s not where you are or what you’re doing, it’s who you’re with.

Don’t exhaust yourself with constant job fairs and resumés. Like my dad says: take a breath. And like I say: outrageous student loans build outstanding character. You’re the best of the best. Inherent with a college degree is employment.

So don’t worry. A job will find you. Just make sure you find yourself.