I officially finished the masters degree about two weeks ago, but I feel like I’ve been celebrating this for a year now. First, it was “the last class,” then the “final exam,” but there was still the 6th year to complete. Next, it was the “Noite da Medicina”, where we celebrated finishing our degree, even though the thesis and another 6 months of internships were still pending. Then it came the traditional “Queima das Fitas” (it’s like a graduation), but presenting my thesis and one more month of internship were still ahead. After completing the internship, there was still the damn thesis to finish. Finally, my thesis was done and presented, and there was nothing left! It was done! But with so much celebration, I still had that thought, “there must be something missing for sure.” If there is, I haven’t discovered what it is yet… That being said, I’ve been experiencing a very peculiar mix of feelings about no longer being a student, and I would like to share them with you.
Happiness because I finally finished these 6 looong years
Demorou tanto a passar mas ao mesmo tempo parece que o tempo me escapou entre os dedos. Impossível não sentir felicidade e honestamente um grande orgulho de ter conseguido terminar esta etapa. Houve alturas mesmo difíceis, como em todos os cursos há de certeza, e por isso digo que foi um diploma tirado com muito sangue, suor, lágrimas e café…
It took so long to pass, but at the same time, it feels like time slipped through my fingers. It’s impossible not to feel happiness and honestly a great pride in having managed to finish this big step in my life. There were really tough times, as there are in all degrees for sure, and that’s why I say it was a diploma earned with a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and coffee…
“Saudade” because my days as a student are over
(“saudade” is a portuguese word that doesn’t have a direct equivalent in English. It describes a deep emotional state of longing or nostalgia for something or someone that is absent. It goes beyond a simple feeling of missing; it often carries a sense of profound, bittersweet emotion and a yearning for a past moment, person, or place.)
It just ended, and I already miss this student life: taking study breaks that are longer than the study itself, having a beer in the sunshine before the weekly “Tuna” rehearsal, showing up at all academic parties knowing that the next day I would go to class with dark circles and a bottle of water… I lived my student life very well, I have no doubt about that. I wouldn’t change a thing. Despite being ready for new adventures, I admit that I’ll miss walking with my cloak on my shoulders and shouting through the streets of Lisbon that the best degree is the medical one. Wherever life takes me, Lisbon will always be my city, the one that saw me grow for 24 years.
Side Note: Portugal has a very specific and special academic tradition. We have academic uniforms with cloaks (looks like a harry potter costume) and musical groups for each university called “Tunas”.
Anxiety because I am now able to do “whatever I want”
Most medical students may not relate to this feeling because they want to follow the traditional medical career path, but others might understand me better. I spent the last while postponing a lot of things with the excuse “when I finish my degree, that’s when my life will make sense”. I mean things like: when I finish me degree, I’ll dedicate myself to the blog, when I finish my degree, I can plan my trip to Guatemala, when I finish my degree, I can finally focus on the English exam I want to take… Even simpler things like: when I finish my degree, I’ll exercise more, sleep better, and tidy up my room. In the end, we postpone a bunch of tasks (and feelings) for when that big obstacle is over, but when it does end, and we can do whatever we want, there’s a giant anxiety that boils down to “I can do whatever I want but I have no idea what I want to do”. We basically lose our excuses for not doing what we want, and now we can only blame ourselves. It’s amazing and scary at the same time.
I’ve vented about this with some friends, and I was happy to find out that I’m not alone. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one for whom the end of university is a strange bittersweet, a little ball of complex feelings, questions, and insecurities about our future and what we want to make of it. It was good to know that I’m not the only one who still feels a bit adrift in this world of possibilities.
Leave a Reply