By KARINA SCHULZ WHARWOOD
In the first semester of your first year in this new environment, sitting in some classes where you’d rather be anywhere but there, you sometimes wonder whether this was the right career choice for you.
Then you push through (or some of us change it up for something better) and then you hit that final stretch, so close yet so far from making it to the finish line.
Except, that finish line seems so far away, like you are swimming against the current and all you want to do it stay where you are.
On the one hand you just want to get there, finish up and get out into the real world, yet on the other, what are you actually going to do once you get there? And is there a way out?
University is often regarded as the best time of our lives. Filled with parties, new people, studying exactly what you want, making life-long friends, feeling that a bright future lies ahead.
Some people don’t even seem to be bothered about their grades. Talking to people around the campus, there seems to be a consensus that nobody knows what they are doing, nor where they are going after graduation day. To them, “C’s get degrees”.
Then you have the people who seem to have it all figured out: who they are, what they want to do in the future, or at least they have a vague idea. Meanwhile, you just stand there feeling left behind while they talk about their “grand plans”.
The semester is a rollercoaster of contradictory feelings.
On the one hand I need to get the best possible grades to get the best possible outcome of my degree as a step in the direction to get that “dream job” and live oh-so-desired high life.
Yet, there is the opposing thought that there is such a wide world out there.
The grades and money shouldn’t be everything; going out and taking that road trip rather than cramming for your exam are things that might not be able to be done later on in life with the same outlook on things.
There is a part of my brain, which I actively seek not to engage in, where I question my degree, the path I have laid out for myself and question who I am and where I am going.
I think a lot of these fears stem from the amount of pressure we get from early on.
As children, we are asked what we want to be when we grow up, and it is a question that constantly lingers at the back of our minds somewhere.
It all really starts in primary school – what high school will you go to, because that defines your university. And then? Your university could make all the difference as to what job you’ll get.
All of these pressures to go well in order to get into the next stage in life, yet nobody really gives us the time to decide what we want.
Some take gap years to decide on “the right path for them” while others pick a degree from early on and stick to it.
At the end of the day, while we feel alone in our confusion and lack of general life orientation, all of these mixed contradicting outlooks on life and your degree, there are so many others out there feeling the same.
And that is okay, because everything will fall into place at some stage.