Hey you,
First things first, breathe. No, don't roll your eyes. Breathe. Take a few deep breaths and really open yourself up to listen to what I'm going to tell you.
Ready?
Now, take a moment, sit back and let it sink in that in just a few short months you will have successfully earned a bachelor’s degree in your field.
You've endured four long, gruesome years of professors that don't like you for no reason, of all-nighters and extremely overpriced Einstein's coffee, of final exams you knew you had no hopes of passing but somehow miraculously did, of short, "we-only-have-one-class-together" friends and lifelong "you're-never-getting-rid-of-me-now" friendships, of volunteer hours and campus involvement, of terrible, awful cafeteria food that never changes, of required core classes that have absolutely nothing to do with your major and everything to do with making your freshman year hell, of plain ole hard work, of learning to multitask like a Jedi, of persevering and pushing through.
Four
years of college that you handled like a boss, and now you've earned
a diploma to prove it.
Take
a moment to be proud of yourself and what you've achieved.
Don't
just keep reading this letter. Really take a moment and let your
accomplishment sink in. You're graduating college. You are now an
expert in your field. You know
things.
Take
a moment to be damn proud of that.
Now,
as you move into what non-university folk patronizingly term "the
real world" (because studying your ass off for four years while
juggling jobs, family, friends, the sad remnants of a once-thriving
social life, etc., is apparently child's play), there's something
essential you must know first.
You
do not have to have it figured out yet.
It
is 100 percent okay to not know what you're doing after
graduation.
Maybe you want to take a gap year and go backpacking around Europe. Maybe you want to try and make the world a better place with a stint in the Peace Corps. Maybe you want to go straight on to graduate schools to seek your masters or doctorate. Maybe you want to find a job in your field immediately (and I do wish you the best of luck with that). Maybe you want to keep working in the "I-only-took-this-position-to-pay-my-way-through-college" job you already have. Maybe you've never had a job and just want to live on your parents couch for a few months while you figure things out.
All
of these options are perfectly normal and understandable, and so is
being undecided.
The
thing is, we've been on an assembly line our entire lives. Pre-K to
elementary school. Elementary school to middle school, and so on. And
then every unrealistic Hollywood movie tells us that the next step
after college is to enter that nonexistent "real world,"
where we find the ever elusive six-figure, 9-to-5 jobs, and then move
into nice suburban homes, get married, have babies, retire and
die.
Only
that's total bullshit.
Personally,
the whole 9-to-5 gig holds no appeal for me, and that assembly line
scheme, more often than not, doesn't work in that order, anyway. But
we've been on the assembly line for so long that it's become
ingrained in us. As we move toward graduation, it manifests inside us
as a desire to have our entire lives mapped out before us.
Critical
correction: when you graduate college, you don't need to know what
you're going to do for the rest of your life. You just need to know
what you want to do next.
And
if you're unsure of what to do next, you just need a plan that gives
you some time to figure that out.
Remember, you just graduated college. You have a degree. You've done stuff. Have some faith in yourself and your ability to get shit done.
My only advice to you? Forget the anxiety. Forget the stress and the worry. Be proud of what you've accomplished so far, and in a few months when you come face-to-face with the “real world,” don't be afraid to go out and conquer that shit.
All my love,
Cailee
