With graduation less than a month away, I keep finding myself having the same conversation over and over with everyone I talk to. My family and friends continually ask, "Are you ready for graduation?", "Do you have any plans after graduation?", "Have you applied to any jobs?" and "Where are you thinking about living?".
College is hard and it sucks… most of the time. By the time you are a senior, you are so over the group projects and the professors that don't know your name. You are tired of the endless assignments and doing projects that will likely never benefit you in the real world. You are fed up with the endless meetings and dishing out money to every club possible just to make you look 'well rounded' and to have something to put on your resume.
It's spring and the weather is finally pretty, and you would much rather be at the pool instead of stuck in the library stu(dying) for finals but you head to the library anyway, in hopes that you get hit by a bus on the way there.
I understand that the friends and families of college graduates are eager to hear about their plans and what they want to do in the future. They want to congratulate them on their job offers and interviews but here's the thing; if a college student isn't talking about their post-graduation plans, it's probably because they don't have any.
When a college student has a job offer out of college, they will tell you because they are just as proud that they got that job as you are, but for the students that don't have any plans after graduation, it stinks to have to hear all their friends' plans and then have to come home to church on Easter Sunday to have all the little old ladies in the sanctuary tell them how they better get their applications in.
It is so overwhelming to think about a future after college after you have been sitting in a classroom for the last 16 years and personally, even with a degree (almost) in hand, I still have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my life. I feel so much pressure to get a job in my field because I've worked so hard and spent so much money to have the letters BSBA behind my name, but in reality, I really wouldn't be that upset if I didn't end up getting a job in my field.
To everyone that wants to know a college students post-graduation plans, they will tell you when they have them. They will proudly post a status on Facebook and so will their mom. They will finally post those graduation pictures that they didn't want to post months ago when they were taken because they didn't have good news to go with them.
So my word of advice to the friends and family of college graduates: Do not ask them about their plans, let them tell you on their own. Do not pressure them to apply for jobs or make suggestions about what you think would be best for them. Unless you are offering them a job, chances are they don't even want to talk to you about it. It's likely that even with an expensive degree, they don't know what their next step is, where the will be working or where they will be living.
So don't talk about it.
