I’m here to announce I’ve been a victim of the summer scaries – a pre-fourth year summer of stress, anxiety and overthinking. If you’ve fallen victim to this too, don’t worry – you are absolutely not alone. While summer is usually a time for relaxing and recovering from the ever so gruesome exam season, I found this summer – the one leading up to my fourth year – to be full of inescapable fear about the future and my post-graduation career. Not to say it hasn’t been on my mind for the entirety of university, but the sheer intensity of my anxiety surrounding the future caught me a bit by surprise this summer, especially given the long year I have ahead. Over the past 3 months, while completing an internship, I attempted to sift through these thoughts, hoping to find some confidence in my post-grad future.
Having an internship this summer did allow me to feel more confident in my footing moving forward; however it lacked in quieting the confusion I felt about what it is I want to do with my life. While, yes, I know I’m not supposed to have it all figured out, I still feel a huge pressure to know what I want to do and have a defined life path. Despite this solid internship experience, every post grad position I’ve applied for so far has been met with rejection, so to say I’m feeling a little discouraged is an understatement.
I think part of what makes the summer before fourth year feel so different is that, for the first time, the end of university feels less like a distant idea and more like an approaching deadline. For the past three years, there has always been another year to figure things out. Another semester to take a class that might spark an interest, another summer to gain experience, and another opportunity to change my mind. Now, suddenly, the question of “what do you want to do after graduation?” feels a lot more urgent. I found that question to be on the tip of every tongue, of every person I talked to this summer (which, naturally, makes me feel so much better about everything…).
But one thing I have realized this summer is that getting a jump on my future career doesn’t necessarily mean having my entire future planned out. Instead, I’m trying to focus on putting myself in a position where I have options.
My internship has been a huge part of that. Even though it didn’t magically answer the question of what I want to do forever, it gave me something arguably more valuable: a better understanding of what I do and don’t enjoy. One essential piece of advice a colleague gave me this summer was to use experiences to figure out what I don’t want rather than what I do want. While it is a seemingly simple notion, I found it to be extremely helpful. My interests and career aspirations feel far more complex than I initially thought, but figuring out what I don’t want has helped me narrow down what might be right for me. Through my internship, I’ve been able to build skills, learn how I work in a professional environment, meet people in an industry I’m interested in, and, perhaps most importantly, see what a potential career path could actually look like beyond a job description on LinkedIn – even if it’s not a career path I’m certain I want to pursue.
I’ve also started thinking more intentionally about what I want my fourth year to look like. Rather than waiting until graduation is right around the corner to start thinking about careers, I’m using this year as an opportunity to explore. That means continuing to apply for a variety of positions, reaching out to people whose careers interest me, attending career events, updating my CV and LinkedIn, and using my network to my advantage – another piece of advice I received this summer that I’ll share with you all. I think it’s easy for young adults like myself to feel like a bother when reaching out to people regarding a job, or to people in positions to help us move forward. A colleague I worked with this summer reminded me that a network is there to be used, and, more often than not, people are happy to be of assistance! So, call up that old boss, ask for that recommendation, and be confident in doing so – your network is only what you make it and how you use it, so don’t waste the opportunity.
As I start my fourth year, I’m trying to remind myself that rejection is not the same thing as failure. It’s easy to take every “Unfortunately, we will not be progressing with your application” personally when you’ve spent hours tailoring an application – seriously, I’m sick of it. But the reality is that a rejection from one company doesn’t determine whether I’ll be successful after graduation. If anything, these early rejections are teaching me how to put myself out there, how to handle disappointment, and how to keep going when things don’t immediately work out.
So, am I still scared about graduating? Of course. I don’t think an internship, a polished CV, or a few career events will ever completely eliminate that feeling, but maybe that isn’t the goal. I’m here to let you know that whatever anxiety you feel about the future, I’m right there with you.
If there’s one thing I’m learning from my summer of “scaries,” it’s that graduating isn’t a finish line I need to sprint toward. It’s simply the next step – and I still have plenty of time to figure out where I want that step to take me.