Your final year of university is exciting, exhausting, and terrifying all at once. In between feeling utterly overwhelmed, we also face one awful, dreaded question. Everyone’s asking the same thing: what are you doing after you graduate?
You can’t stand outside a lecture hall without the words ringing in your ears, and you can’t escape the question from your flatmates either. In reality, most of us haven’t even started on our dissertations yet. Graduation anxiety is an inescapable thing. The lucky ones seem to have it figured out. But for many and most of us, we are filled with a daunting fear of the unknown and, simultaneously, a terrifying feeling of running out of time.
The anxiety of final year can sometimes feel like too much. It can be tempting to stick your head in the sand and ignore the real world for a little while, especially when the people around you seem to know what they are doing. While you might hear of others (frustratingly organised) already applying for graduate schemes, postgraduate courses, or internships, nothing good can come from comparing yourself to them. There are so many options out there, and everybody’s path is a different one. Even if you don’t find immediate success in your own applications, that’s completely normal. Your time will come. These things have a knack for happening at the right moment.
If, like me, you finished your A-levels and moved immediately to university, that means you’ve been in full time education for seventeen years. Seventeen years of defined structure and routine coming to an end is a massively unnerving thought. We face the discomforting reality of being completely on our own. However, I want to remind you that there is also something strangely freeing about this time of major change and displacement. There is no end to the opportunity which follows. Take a break and hold out your arms to change – now might be the right time for a gap year, or a few. There are so many beautiful things to see and do in the world. Otherwise, you might want to take some time to ground yourself, figure things out. If you don’t feel ready to go straight to work, you don’t have to. Life isn’t linear, and we are still so young. Our uncertainty stems from a fear of the unknown, but anxiety is an inherent feature within change. Don’t worry too much, and it will work itself out in time. You’ll thank yourself for letting things naturally fall into place.
Most importantly, it’s okay not to know what you’re doing, to struggle with the thought of life after university. Many of us have met our best friends here, and think on our time at Bristol fondly. The university-blues are real, and you aren’t alone in feeling them. In fact, after talking to friends and course-mates, it seems more normal to have no idea. Every single graduate has gone through this at one point or another, and many take years until they end up where they want to be. We are on the edge of something here. Something which is all at once overwhelming and uncertain and yet unbelievably exciting. We are an embodiment of the phrase ‘growing pains,’ waiting for life to happen and yet struck by a frustrating hesitation. Right now, we are inhabitants of the in-between, and no matter how long we stay here, there is something promising waiting for us all.