Since it is May, graduations are right around the corner at Patrick Henry High School and San Diego State University, respectively.

As I mentioned in a column months ago, your time in school goes by in the blink of an eye.

I graduated from high school more than 40 years ago, and it went so fast.

Yes, I remember being a freshman and thinking it would take an eternity to get through the next four years. Having older siblings who had all graduated, I was the last one left at home. I can remember yearning to be them and out living my life as an adult.

Fast-forward four years, and I was walking on the field of my high school’s football stadium, getting a diploma.

During those four years, I made some new friends and continued some childhood friendships, some of which last to this day. I played sports, was on my school’s newspaper staff, and more. As for my grades, let me say I should have done much more studying.

Once high school was over, I went to the local community college for two years (degree in Radio/TV) and then finished up at a four-year school with a degree in Communication Studies.

After some 36 years in the media industry, I’m blown away by how fast the time has gone. 

It seems like only yesterday I was cramming for a quiz, heading off to my school through the snows of Pennsylvania in the wintertime, passing notes to fellow students when the teachers had their backs to us (cell phones did not exist back in the day), worrying if I had the grades to get into college, and so on.

Freelance writer and SDSU student Charlize Tungol did a good piece for us on page 3 about advice outgoing seniors have for incoming students in the fall. One theme in her article was how fast the time goes by. You want to do all you can to enjoy and learn from it.

As our local schools prepare over the coming weeks to send more graduates out into the real world, always as a student soak it all in.

Before you know it, you will wax nostalgic as I and many others have done later in life.

(Photo courtesy of Patrick Henry High School)