The start of the upper years at university hit different. Entering my third year, I found myself asking how I got all the way here. Weren’t we just at O-week? Weren’t we fighting for our lives during our first course registration period? Suddenly, things have shifted. Everyone around you is polishing résumés, applying for internships or drafting graduate school personal statements. LinkedIn updates feel like a scoreboard and career fairs buzz with conversations about five-year trajectories. I thought I’d have more of my life together at this point. You might feel the same way. It’s easy to believe that if you don’t have a roadmap, you’re already falling behind. We are, after all, at what seems like the crossroads of university life.
But the truth? Not having a five-year plan doesn’t mean you’re lost. Life doesn’t move in perfect timelines, and success doesn’t always require a detailed roadmap. In fact, being flexible often opens doors you didn’t know existed and you end up learning more about yourself.
THE PRESSURE OF APPLICATIONS
This time of year is heavy with deadlines. Competitive job and internship applications, med school applications, law school applications and more. Everywhere you look, students are mapping out the next chapter of their lives. All this hustle creates a culture of comparison, where success is measured by who already has a plan neatly packaged. Yet, many of the students I’ve spoken to admit their applications are filled with uncertainty. A health sciences student applying to medicine worries she may discover a passion for research later. A commerce major chasing consulting admits he’s not sure he even likes the field. And another student, after getting rejected from their “dream” summer job last year, found themselves exploring non-profit work instead. This was something they hadn’t considered, but now love.
WHEN PLANS CHANGE
Life rarely unfolds on a perfect timeline. One student I met at a recent on-campus volunteer training day entered university planning to be an engineer, only to discover a passion for public policy in a single elective course. Another person I met at the training day planned on going straight to grad school but took a year off after burnout, which ended up being the reset that clarified their goals. While they are in grad school now, they had to have that year to find a version of themselves they didn’t know they needed. These stories aren’t failures in the slightest. They’re proof that detours can lead to authentic success and realizing the version of yourself that you are happiest with.
Maybe success for you looks like starting a business, but maybe it also looks like taking a gap year, pursuing art on the side, or even admitting you don’t know yet. And that’s totally okay! Success is less about sticking to a rigid schedule and more about showing up, trying, and being willing to change course.
Embracing Uncertainty
What if instead of measuring ourselves against five-year plans, we choose to measure ourselves by curiosity, effort, and adaptability? University is one of the few times in life when experimentation is encouraged. It’s okay if your plan shifts every semester. It’s okay if you don’t have a plan at all. What matters is that you’re learning, not just about your field, but about yourself.
It’s easy enough to say “embrace uncertainty,” but what does that actually look like? For me, it started with reframing how I approached applications. Instead of treating every one as a high-stakes test of my future, I began to see them as experiments of sorts. Each cover letter or interview was less about proving I had a five-year plan and more about collecting info on what excited me, what drained me, and what kinds of roles felt like a better fit. That mindset shift lessened my fear of rejection and gave me space for curiosity.
I also found that narrowing the timeline helped. Five years felt abstract and overwhelming, but asking myself “What do I want to explore this year?” felt manageable. Maybe it was trying out research, volunteering in a new community, or simply taking on a course outside my program. A one-year plan gave me direction without boxing me in.
Redefining what “counts” as success was just as important. Instead of measuring myself against peers with clear trajectories, I asked the following: Am I learning something new? Am I building resilience? Am I nurturing relationships that matter? By those metrics, even detours started to look like progress.
Finally, I leaned on mentors and peers who were honest about their own nonlinear paths. One of my profs shared that they applied for med school three times and through research and volunteering they did between those application cycles, found their true calling. Most careers are stitched together through pivots, not perfect planning.
The Bottom Line
The pressure to “have it all figured out” is real. Having direction can be useful, but a five-year plan is not a contract. It’s a draft! Drafts are meant to be edited. Success is also found in uncertainty, in the courage to admit you don’t know, in the resilience to pivot, and in the openness to detours. Success doesn’t always look like a clean line from point A to point B. Growth often comes not from following the straight line, but from daring to take the bumpy path with a whole lot of turns.
So, if you don’t have your life mapped out by the semester or the year, take a breath. You’re not lost. You’re just living, and that’s more than enough.