My friends and I started a fun, new ritual a few weeks ago when we moved back up to Kingston for our final year at Queen’s. It begins with us making dinner, usually something carb-heavy and covered in cheese, which we eat together while crowded in our tiny kitchen. Then, the four of us snuggle into one bed, put on the saddest music available on Spotify, and cry about graduating this spring.
I guess it’s sort of a coping mechanism? I always knew in an abstract way that university would go by fast, but it still shocked me when it really happened. I picked one class because this year was my last chance to take it. Suddenly, I meet 80% of my degree requirements. And it’s FREAKING ME OUT!
When I’m sitting on the porch enjoying the late-afternoon sun, the little anxiety worm that lives in my brain says, you only have eight months left in this house. When I’m at the convenience store where the cashier knows me by name it whispers, who will still be in your life this time next year? I hear it the loudest when I walk through the University District, where laughter and music spills from every open window. Where will you go when you don’t belong here anymore?
I blame most of this feeling of impending-doom on recruiting season. I’m a business major (yikes), so my fourth-year schedule is full of networking events and information sessions and praying that somebody—anybody—will hire me. My anxiety worm has a lot to say about it. What is your true passion in life? Why haven’t you founded a unicorn start-up yet? There is so much pressure put on fourth years to have it all figured out and it’s sending me and my friends into a spiral.
Here’s the good news: as much as it seems like graduation marks the start of your Real Grown-Up Adult Life, it doesn’t. Your first job will probably not be in the field you stay in for decades. Ask any retiree how they got to where they are and they’ll tell you a story full of career pivots and big wins, little mistakes and hard decisions at every turn. Seriously, most people will have 12 jobs over the course of their lives. If you’re scared you picked the wrong major, you can rest easier knowing 29% of people completely change fields after university.
Put your trust in this clichĂ©: you are exactly where you need to be in this present moment. Freaking out about the future won’t make the time pass any quicker. The only way to answer that anxious voice is to wait and see what happens! In the meantime, focus on appreciating the present. I’ve been catching sunsets at the pier, sharing a homemade charcuterie board for dinner, and stopping to pet dogs on my way to class. The more I look, the more I find to be grateful for in my life right now.