School in general, but especially college, can be one of the most stressful times of your life. Even more specifically second-semester senior year. It's supposed to be so exciting, and everyone and their grandmother is asking you if you're excited about graduation and where you're headed after to pursue a career. Those conversations are really only fun if you have the answers to them, though. If you don't, this is the time to realize that it is completely fine to not have every moment of your life after college planned out already.
It can be easy to struggle throughout your last semester stressing out over getting the perfect grades to get that degree, while also trying to land a job right out of school that you may end up staying at until the day you retire. You know what? That is absolutely terrifying. Many people, including myself, have somehow ingrained this weird impression in our heads that if you don't have something impressive to say about what you're doing the moment after you finish walking across the stage somehow you aren't accomplished.
Newsflash: you are.
It's okay to take a gap year to travel. It's okay to work as a waitress while you job hunt for that perfect career you want. It's okay to not go to grad school even if it seems like that's what everyone else around you is doing.
As cliché as it sounds, everything really does work out the way it's supposed to. It may not be exactly the way you had originally planned it out, but that doesn't mean it's going to be bad. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and let the world work itself out.
So, next time someone asks what your plans are and you realize you may not have any, remember to breathe, smile, and tell them happily that you really just don't know, but that's okay.
