For university students, life can begin to feel extremely unpredictable and terrifying. It’s an awkward stage in our life, transitioning from youth to adulthood. Many of us put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to immediately create a thorough plan for our next steps. If we aren’t able to do so, our society generally has a tendency to deem us as failures. As a result, college can become a time in a young adult’s life where they might face their first existential crisis.
Personally, I remember when I first started my college career at CU Boulder last year; I was a terrified freshman, intimidated by the large campus and extensive amount of potential professions I could look into for my future. Sometimes having a ton of options, while simultaneously being helpful for variety, can be extremely overwhelming! In addition, I have always been a girl who has had multiple interests, so it was an anxiety-inducing process for me, trying to figure out which path would appeal to me the most. I was stuck in this repetitive cycle of thinking about a potential career, then overthinking my decision and wondering if I would be truly happy with my choice in the future. I considered many extremely diverse options for a career path. It ranged from wanting to become a travel journalist, going into law school, getting a PhD in the field of neuroscience, to becoming a forensic psychiatrist. I can confidently say that I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life…and that was a terrifying thought.
Then something happened over the summer between my freshman and sophomore years: something finally clicked. For context, I took an organic chemistry course over the summer. I wanted to focus all of my attention on that class individually, in order to give myself the best possible chance to get a good grade. I decided to use my experience in the course to help me evaluate if pursuing medical school was the right path for me to take.
As a disclaimer, I am not trying to equate the difficulty of getting into/going through medical school to taking a course of organic chemistry. I simply decided to try and use my experience in the course as a starting point to help me evaluate if I would ever be interested in going into a field of science. I had already determined during my freshman year that if I was to pursue a future in the scientific field, I would try to get an MD instead of a PhD. The idea of working with patients instead of in a laboratory setting appealed to me more. The idea of going into the medical field had always appealed to me, but I had so many other interests that I always held off putting all of my energy and effort into pursuing that specific goal. As such, I decided to use my experience in organic chemistry as an evaluating point: if I couldn’t even handle the course load of organic chemistry, then the path to medical school was definitely not going to be for me.
I was extremely nervous going into the class. I had heard only horrible things about it, ranging from it being extremely difficult, impossible to pass, and having a reputation of being everyone’s least favorite class to take. However, once I was able to take the course for myself, I was (pleasantly) surprised to discover that I was having a ton of fun with the subject material! The course was extremely difficult (unfortunately no one was really exaggerating about that), but I found myself being challenged in a way that instilled in me a passion for learning I hadn’t felt before. Taking that course over the past summer was probably the most beneficial thing I ever did for myself: It helped me understand myself better and helped me have a better idea of what I wanted to do with my life. This summer, I knew for myself that I wanted to pursue a path to medical school.
It is a terrifying feeling, finally being able to pinpoint my future goal for my life.When I first had the click, it felt weird to say that I was still scared, considering how terrifying it was for me previously to not know what I wanted. That’s when I came to an important realization: the future is scary, either way. Even if you decide on a goal for your future, you cannot plan every detail along the way. Life is unpredictable and you have to keep yourself open to changes that you don’t expect to meet. While I now know that I want to eventually go into medical school and become a doctor, I have no specific idea of what my life is going to look like trying to get there.
Ultimately, the click is an extremely powerful feeling, but you should not stress about immediately trying to figure out a goal for your life. Everyone works on a different timetable. Here is the beautiful thing about being a young adult: this is the time in our lives where we have the most options, the most opportunities to explore. The world is our oyster! Don’t listen to the nagging voice in the back of your head saying that you’re inadequate if you don’t immediately have a plan for your future. The truth is: no one has a concrete plan! All we can do is try and have a goal to reach, do our best to obtain that goal, and stay open and flexible for the future to come.
Resources to take the first step into formulating a goal to work towards: