Recently, I have been attending career fairs and contacting UMD alumni for future jobs and summer internships. So far, it’s been a rocky road. Even though employers find me likable and well-rounded, I don’t have enough experience on my plate. After all, that first job or internship tends to make or break your career. Since I have started my journalism career, it’s been hard to find the perfect internship or figure out what I want to do with my life. Sometimes, my anxiety will provide these dark thoughts about my future, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to make it out alive. My parents describe their time as different, and they didn’t have so many options to choose from. As a young South Asian woman, I’m not exactly a common stereotype. In fact, some people find it quite shocking that journalism majors still exist. You can read about it here: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-majoring-journalism

Regardless of a student’s path, it’s stressful to find job opportunities and land that dream job. It’s also stressful because finding a good job that pushes the idea of passion isn’t as important grades and making money. Students of our generation, find themselves in the position that they are struggling to find a good major so it leads to a good job in the future. I have spoken to a variety of students, and some of them feel like they have lost their passion and are having a hard time trying to find themselves while in college. It's become a pressure to become the best at school, the perfect job candidate and continue to be social. There are all these restrictions that students of our generation have to go through that it has become suffocating and one of the causes of student's anxiety. My anxiety.

As I have been attending these career and job fairs, I find myself in a situation of jealousy that there is always going to be someone better and that the friends I make in my classes are my competition. My anxiety gets the best of me and orchestrates my daily emotions. For instance, looking for jobs and internships give me anxiety and fear for the future and failure. It creates a wave of panic that I'm not qualified or that my peers have jobs or set for summer internships and I don't officially have anything. I feel like I am afraid to enter the journalism or writing industry because nothing is stable. There is a part of me that is afraid that I'll be unemployed and everything I dreamt will be torn down in seconds. Even as I continue to grow in the industry and expand myself, nothing will be changed. As I am excited about my future, I am so terrified of what will be the outcome.