If you’re a college student, I’m sure you’ve heard about a million times, “So what are you going to do after school?” Freshman to seniors are asked this daunting question. Family members drop this question almost every Thanksgiving, Christmas, even casual get-togethers; nothing kills your mood more than having to figure out how to respond if you do not know the answer. The thing is, students may discover new interests, or become disinterested in something they were so sure of doing during college. Even graduates might not be in a career that they necessarily expected. The average person will change career paths 5-7 times during their working life. If you ask most adults, I would bet that most are in a career that they could not have guessed they would be in — that is completely okay.
Besides an individual’s passions and interests changing, the question of what someone’s going to do is almost impossible to answer. None of us are fortune tellers, and I’m not sure how reliable your local psychic is, but to have an exact idea of where you will be after school is impractical. Not only is it impractical, but it will unintentionally cause you to become anxious and rethink everything about your life. Being in college is stressful enough, and having to think about the future when you are doing the best you can at that moment is straight up terrifying. Though it is important to think about the future and career opportunities, I think instead of questions, maybe our loved ones should give us reassurance. Young adults are experiencing an immense amount of independence and making decisions and choices that will affect aspects of their lives tremendously. I think it is important for people to realize that saying you are proud of someone, simply because they are starting a new chapter of their lives and trying to find where they fit in this world.
What is even more frustrating when people ask what you will be doing after school is how rarely people graduate college and are instantly successful. Success takes time; it takes experience and years of hard work. There will be plenty of opportunities that we get, and sometimes plenty of them that we don’t. Businesses, empires, and companies are not built overnight, and fail many times. Most famous successful individuals are already into their mid-lives until things start working out for them. Jeff Bezos, the richest man on Earth, said, “You must be willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”
The idea of graduating college with your dream job is highly unlikely, but that is okay. If you got the best right away how would one be able to appreciate it, or grow from it? The question of what you are doing after school will never cease to not be asked. But I urge those that have kids in college or know a college student that encouraging and motivating words can go a long way. Trust me, we need them.