The Number 1 Question Most Seniors In College Do Not Have the Answer To
Approaching the end of my undergraduate career, the dreaded question that I am constantly confronted with is, "What are you planning on doing next year?" My go to answer is the only one I have: I don't know.
This question began making its first appearances in my life the summer before my senior year began. When my parent's friends began asking me about my plans after school ended, I would shyly shrug my shoulders in the face of this daunting question. It has since ceased to rear its ugly head. I cannot recall any other time in my life where I have been faced with the same question over and over, continuously without an answer.
I have direction, I have fields that I'm interested in, but that does not constitute as an answer. After a few months of hearing this question, I would sigh, and my face would undoubtedly give away the fact that this is not a question I have an answer to, nor do I wish to discuss it any further with you.
At first, I would say something ambiguous, but as time passed, and the future looming closer on the horizon than it was yesterday, I could not pretend to be pursuing a career that I was not. This close to the end, the topic of my future was too serious.
Only 3 months away from graduation, I am constantly torn between job applications and working on my senior English thesis. I do not know which one should take precedence. While isolated on my small liberal arts school campus, homework always trumps. While home on breaks, I think, why do I bother with the endless assignments that won't matter the second I graduate, and instead focus on "real-life" work? These questions are the bane of my existence.
My peer's understand- we are all in the same boat. Except for a few lucky math and economics majors, who have the rest of their lives signed away to various financial firms, nobody knows how to answer the question that we all shrink from.
When my parents ask my on a weekly basis what I plan to do after graduation, I know better than to elaborate on the pressures of being a college student as an excuse for not having any viable answers to give them. "The second I know, you'll know."
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