Picture this: I’ve just finished a stressful first term of the Second Year of university, I’m finally back at home (and away from the cold weather that was getting a bit too much), I don’t have to worry about keeping to a schedule of my own making, my friends and I are all finally back in the same city and time zone but then the question I’ve dreaded being asked since starting second year comes up: so, what are you going to do after university?
Anyone who might know me will know that, although I’m not the most organised person in my own head, I always like to have a plan. It’s in my nature to be a forward thinker; I’ve always liked to know where I’m going and how the work I’m doing is helping me to get somewhere and reach a final goal. What I didn’t realise is how much university was going to put a halt to those plans and force me to reassess what came next. Before university, not having an idea about what I wanted to do was okay because it seemed as though I had eons of time to figure it all out. Being home for the holidays, at the half-way point of my degree, I somehow decided that it wasn’t okay anymore. Instead, I got it into my head that I needed to know exactly where I was going and how I was going to get there – most importantly, there couldn’t be a single deviation to the plan once I had it set out in my mind because there simply wasn’t enough time for that anymore.
All around me, my friends from both university and home seemed to be heading in a direction. They had plans, charts, work experience and life all planned out ahead of them whilst I found myself feeling like I was floundering, and I realised that this wasn’t the first time that this feeling had come up for me since starting university all the way back in October 2021. I almost felt like, as I’ve said to so many people, I missed the class where everyone decided what they were going to do and who they were going to be. But here’s where things get worse: I realised that I had no idea about how to catch up and, feeling overwhelmed, I let myself get wrapped up in my own mind. It wouldn’t stop racing at a million miles an hour, as it had been doing since I was first asked that all-too important question. Suddenly, what should’ve been a welcome break at home from what had been an emotional and turbulent term one turned into an emotional and turbulent Christmas break because it just felt like I couldn’t find my feet and there was nothing that would be able to keep me steady. Luckily, after a few days away from anything remotely academic and (a pep-talk from my mum), I found some motivation that I was determined to put to good use for future-planning. But the question still remained: where do I go from here?
Coming back to university after the Christmas break has made me understand that time works in funny ways. While I was home and stressing about all the things I should have been doing for the future that remained ever-so uncertain, it felt like time was dragging on until I could get back to a place where I could actively be doing something. Since I’ve been back, my time has been filled with, quote on quote, trying to get my life together, but it just seems that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get through everything I want to because everything seems new and exciting again. Looking back at those first few weeks of term, I was certainly successful in getting things for the future sorted out but what matters to me now isn’t just that I managed to find my feet again and have got myself steady, but that I’ve finally realised that I don’t have to have all the answers just yet. I’ve realised that it is okay for me to take it day by day and see how things go; I’m still a forward planner and I certainly enjoy ticking things off my to-do list but I understand now that the next ten or five or three years don’t need to be as concrete as I originally thought they needed to be. So, while I’m in a better position about knowing things about the path that my life could take after university, (my indecisiveness means I’m still not entirely sure), I’ve decided that I’m going to make a more conscious decision to enjoy what I’ve got going for myself right now. As sentimental as that may sound, I’ve made it a point to remind myself when I get particularly overwhelmed about what comes next that I’m so incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do, to be around the people that I am and to have the chance to build a future for myself on my own terms.
It’s always easy at the start of the new year, particularly when it coincides with the start of a new term, to make promises that are very hard to keep so I won’t make myself do that this year. Instead, I’m going to say this: I’m going to take this term day by day and see how things go because, from my limited life experience so far, I’ve learnt that life has a funny of working out when you least expect it.