By Elizabeth Ednie
As a senior in college trying to figure out what my next steps are while also making the most of the last couple months in school, I can tell you, it’s getting overwhelming. Everyone knows that after graduating college and having all of this structure and routine for the last 20 years of life that you are now forced to “adult,” but no one tells us how to do that. No one tells us what to expect, no one explains the “what ifs” or warns us about all of the new responsibilities you take on once finishing school. Thinking about graduating and not having a routine like I had all of college scares me. How am I supposed to know what to do once I graduate and get a “big girl job?” There’s no class to take in college to fully prepare you for adult life and how to navigate the transition between life in college to life in the real world and if there was, it might be the only class I would fail.
Honestly, I have no idea what I want to do when I graduate, the goal for right now is to get a job doing something I like, obviously. Entering graduate school is a very high possibility because it feels safe, and because I know I am good at school. Knowing how I thrive on being busy, I feel that just having a 9-5 job is not enough for me. I like to push myself, and getting a graduate degree right after earning my undergraduate is sounding more and more like something I want to pursue.
What also throws me for a loop is that being in a long-term relationship for the past three years, I know where I am physically going after school and what the future entails in that aspect of my life. My personal life is all figured out which I think is keeping me somewhat sane. But the professional part of my life is not figured out, which is something I thought that by now it would be. I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason, and those words have come through for me in the past couple years in many different situations. I believe that whatever I choose to do with my life, that is where I am supposed to be. I will never stop reaching for the stars and proving to myself that I can do anything that I set my mind to, because that’s also important.
I wish there was a person who could tell me what to do after graduation, because it’s a constant thought in my head nowadays. I wish I could gain a little insight into the future to see what kind of a job I get and if I am happy with it. Because I have no idea what I even want or where I see myself. People in my life are constantly asking what I want to do with my degree in Mediated Communications and my minor in Journalism. Communications is so broad as it is, that you could literally do anything with it. My love for writing inspired the Journalism minor, but people always assume I want to be a reporter because of it. It’s frustrating to hear all of the questions about my future path because I don’t even know what that is yet. I know I can get jobs in many different fields which is great to keep in the back of my head, but it also makes it confusing because there is no “set path” like there is in other professions.
At the end of the day, I want to live a happy life and enjoy everything that life has to offer. I know that by stressing out now it’s only causing me to question everything so I have to learn to be patient, and to believe that “everything happens for a reason.”