At what point do you officially become an “adult?”
Is it the first time you’re in CVS, fumbling with a glitchy barcode while a line of strangers silently judges your unraveling? When you call your mom to ask if a mug is microwave-safe, only to realize she’s asleep in a different time zone? The moment you finally understand the difference between hot and cold machine wash? (Still don’t for the record).
Growing up, I assumed adulthood would come in a dramatic, even cinematic way. That one day I’d wake up magically bestowed with the knowledge of how to fold a fitted bedsheet, pick the right toothpaste, and decode health insurance plans. But now, as I teeter on what should be the threshold, I am starting to think adulthood is much like Santa Claus — that there seems to be no grand arrival at all.
So, for the sake of this piece, I decided to do a little digging. Do other Penn students feel like adults?
College first year Tiyya Geiger didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Penn feels like the best parts about being an adult — without the bad parts.” College sophomore Izzy Feinfeld echoed her. “Not yet. I think it’ll hit when I live alone and get off the meal plan.” But even College senior Allison Santa-Cruz, well past the days of communal bathrooms and campus dining, wasn't fully convinced. “Sometimes,” she said. “But a lot of me still feels like I’m 13. I didn't think adulting would involve spending hours on TikTok or procrastinating assignments.”
It turns out most of us are suspended in the same awkward limbo: old enough to carry responsibilities, not quite old enough to feel we’ve earned the title of “adult.”
And maybe it’s not just us. For generations before, adulthood came with a checklist: Graduate. Get a job. Get married. Buy a house. But today, that formula feels broken. Homeownership is a fantasy. Student loans burden nearly 40% of Generation Z. And in 2023, almost a quarter of Harvard MBA grads were still job hunting three months post-graduation.
We’ve come of age through a pandemic, during the rise of Facetune and social media comparison culture, and now face the delightful cocktail of a looming recession and climate anxiety. Can you blame us for not feeling “grown”?
So we hold on — to the “adult” version we’re becoming and the kid we used to be. At Penn, we chase consulting interviews between Econ lectures, pad resumes while getting MERTed at Halloween, and job hunt before we’re even old enough to rent a car. We chase the myth that college is supposedly “the best four years of your life” — usually told by a rich uncle who barely passed his classes and spent most of the ’80s smoking pot in a dorm room.
So, will we ever feel like capital-A Adults? Probably not. And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe the new “growing up” of our generation doesn’t mean having it all figured out. Maybe it’s about learning to live with the not-knowing. About letting go of the guilt for being anxious, uncertain, or unfinished — and learning to savor every unpredictable moment we do end up getting.
We may not be growing up the way we thought we would. But we are growing — sideways, diagonally, in spirals and zigzags, and whatever shape the week demands.
We’re redefining adulthood on our own terms, and maybe that’s the most grown-up thing of all.
DIYA CHOKSEY is a College first year studying cognitive science from Mumbai, India. Her email is dchoksey@sas.upenn.edu.
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