It's college graduation season. Here's what I want to tell all the graduates this year:

Congratulations on your graduation from college today. I hope you and your families are proud and pleased. This is a major life achievement. You have done it!

Take today to be happy and care-free -- then tomorrow you can go back to being terrified.

Yes, you have learned many skills and you have lots of knowledge. You have had amazing learning experiences that have changed your life. You have made some good friends. You've had faculty mentors who have modeled the life of the engaged scholar, the community consultant, the entrepreneur.

You've had internships, you've done service-learning projects, you've presented your own original research. Very likely your internship has led to a job or to your acceptance at graduate or professional school.

However, uncertainty and confusion ought to be your natural state right now.

Why?

Because you are going from the peak of college achievement to the bottom of the career ladder. This is the time when you take all the knowledge and experience you have gained so far -- and begin again.

So when some talking head says, "Your generation is now going to have to take over and clean up all the messes we have left for you," just relax.

Do you think we are getting out of your way? Fat chance! Nobody is moving over to let you be the boss right now. You have a way to go before you are actually the boss of anything.

But that does not mean that there is nothing you can do about the state of the world. We who are speaking to you this graduation season from the platforms and pulpits and newspaper columns are mostly going to retire and die before you do. Then you really will be in charge, so you'd better start practicing.

Many of you already have. You have volunteered, done service projects, worked with community non-profit agencies in internships, or worked with children or disadvantaged populations.

Some of you are joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or Teach for America. Some of you will be employed at social service agencies. Some will be teaching or working in health care. There is plenty to do, and I applaud you for getting involved.

Even though some of you may not plan to be directly involved in the service sector, try to keep in mind how your time, volunteer work and philanthropic contributions can help shape your community and your world.

Graduating from college puts you on the leadership track -- in Maine, only about one-third of adults have completed a four-year education. So even if you are the first in your family to graduate from college, you are going to be a leader in some way, at some time.

Volunteering in your community, a career in politics, creating and sustaining a business -- there are many ways to contribute.

I give you maybe 10 years. One day in 2018 you'll be contemplating your work, or getting dressed, or shaving and you'll have a little revelation: "My goodness, I am in charge now."

You will not be president of the United States, not quite yet, but you'll be the boss of something: a work group, a committee, a department, a small company, a family or several of these.

You'll be in a new life stage. Pay attention and enjoy it!

While you are exploring what "being the boss" means, you may look back on today -- your college graduation -- and realize that this time, 2008, so real and central to us right now, belongs to a past that will never come again.

The real world of 2018, whatever it turns out to be, will be your new "now."

That world will be the one that you will have helped to create. Your decisions, your actions, your ideas, your inventions will ripple out into the world with the actions of all the rest of us, and help to make the world what it will become. You will be creating the world you inhabit. You're not responsible for the whole thing, but you are responsible!

OK, time to get going. Being terrified is good. It will make you attentive.

The world will be what you help to make it.

So celebrate what you have achieved today, then get busy creating the future.

Theodora J. Kalikow is president of the University of Maine at Farmington. She can be reached at kalikow@maine.edu