Having nothing to do feels like a personal failure
I love being a Commerce kid. I know we have a bit of a reputation: colouring homework, going out on weekdays, and getting nepo-d into our actual jobs. But as someone who has never really felt 100% confident in her career choice, I feel like I’ve found the perfect place to be. I’ve met people who want to go into literally every single field, and they chose business because it’s versatile.
But as much as I love my program, I hate how much everyone wants to be seen as important.
Why do I have to hear about the summer internship you somehow have in first year before you’ve even started your university education? How do you somehow know everyone in every club and have 500+ connections on LinkedIn? (I’m hovering at 450, it’s embarrassing.) Is anyone actually passionate about private equity and investment banking?
Be serious.
I came to university with the mindset that I would try everything and see where that got me. Sue me, I thought that’s what it was for!
But everyone I’ve met seems to know exactly what they want to do, and they have a plan for how to get there. Props to you, seriously. But I’ve been that person.
When I was in grade five, my parents sat me down and made me write out three possible careers and exactly how I would achieve them. At the time, I thought this was just what everyone did. Looking back, though, I think it taught me something I wish more people talked about: sometimes having a plan is great, and sometimes you need to let go and see what happens.
So, sorry to all the finance bros! No, I actually haven’t been investing my money since I was 14, and no, I haven’t coffee chatted with 20 people who won’t remember my name this week.
And I know I’m being unfair to the program as a whole. They’re my people, and I genuinely respect how ambitious and driven Commerce—and most first year university students—are. I just don’t understand why being ambitious seems to come with this weird pressure to already have everything figured out.
Being a freshman in university does not mean you need to have the next ten years planned out. I came to Queen’s wanting to try things. I want to join clubs I know nothing about. I want to meet people who have completely different interests from me. I want to take classes and realize I hate them. I want to find something I love by accident. I want to change my mind.
I can know that I want to go to law school right now and still explore every other option. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’ll be the person coffee chatting every day and talking about internships by next week. But right now, I would rather be at Vic Pit every Friday than spend my first year of university worrying that I’m falling behind.
Because what exactly am I behind on? I’m eighteen. I think I’m allowed to not know yet.
University is supposed to be where you figure out who you are. So why does it feel like everyone already figured it out before they got here? You’re allowed to change. You’re allowed to grow. You’re allowed to have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.
So honestly, I think I’m going to let myself do that.