College may be a time to grow and develop yourself as a young adult through parties and other social events (and hopefully your classes) but it is also a time to determine what you want to do with the rest of your life.
One of my favorite lines in a song says, “Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t,” from “Everybody is Free to Wear Sunscreen,” by Baz Luhrman.
I guess in some ways we should be lucky in the United States that this burden of choosing a career is pushed on us in our 20s. In Italy students decide their desired area of study after 6th grade! Can you imagine?! I couldn’t even decide how I wanted to wear my hair in the morning then, let alone what I wanted to do for the rest of my life!
But the truth still is, the hardest part of college is deciding what you want to do with your life after.
Make as many connections as possible in college (it’s mainly for networking!!). The people you meet in college are the people who have been out there in the world and who have the connections that you will need!
Did I ever think that after my four years at Rider as a biology major that I would be looking at graduate schools and find my niche (again!) at Rider? Never. That the people I met, worked, and traveled with as an undergrad would become my greatest resources to getting a Graduate Assistantship where Rider pays for me to get my Masters?! Nope.
I also was not completely sure that being a teacher was something I was interested in this early in my life. My original plan was to graduate, get a sweet job working for a pharmaceuticals company in the area of sales, and then eventually think about going into education. Boy, that was not the way it panned out. I don’t know if you guys know this but the market is (for lack of a better word) crap; especially in the pharma companies. I would apply for a job and the next day read in the paper that they just laid off 10,000 people. Now those are 10,000 people with experience that are looking for the same jobs as I am, fresh out of school. Not fun. But it is reality right now.
Bottom line, college is for making all sorts of connections (relationships both personal and professional). I don’t want to sound ruthless, but you never know when you will need these people to step up to the bat for you. Put your best foot forward, make those connections, experience college in every way & get those jobs!
Have you been building your resources in college?