Whether you are halfway done with college or in your last year, many college students are stressing over the whole job search process. This whole process starts from your first year with obtaining internships and experience to finalizing your decision for which company you would want to work for. This process is one of the most stressful and difficult decisions any college student makes throughout their academic path.

Let’s start off with the beginning of the process: gaining experience. As a first and second year, it can be really stressful watching everyone around you get great internships for even greater companies while you are still applying and waiting to hear back. Finding a job in the future is extremely dependent on the experience that you gain in your interested field. College students are competing with each other to get a great experience that they can use to in the end, get the best career that they can get. As a young adult, with many responsibilities thrown at you, this beginning stage can be the most difficult and hardest to get through.

Then, going on to your later years, finalizing a decision of getting a job or continuing education can also be a difficult choice. After you have struggled in your early years of college through trying to get internships and sufficient experience, many students still struggle with finding a job, in that our job market is probably the most competitive it can be. Competing with all the college students in the nation and possibly those students coming in from international countries, finding the perfect job for you is by far the biggest obstacle you can ever face. On the other side of the spectrum, if you want to continue your education to graduate school, you may face a huge obstacle. With that you are also competing with national and international students for the limited spaces in the graduate program in the school of your choice.

Overall, this whole process from beginning to end is a never ending battle. As young adults and college students, we are bombarded with many responsibilities and externalities and pressures that can overwhelm us. Currently stuck right in the middle of this process, it has been an extremely stressful and anxious journey. Not knowing where I will be in the future years is definitely a scary situation. However, one thing that I can say about this stress-inducing process that almost all college students go through is that I have learned a lot about myself and my personal growth. Throughout this process, one can get overwhelmed and self absorbed in the public sphere and reputation that you lose yourself. Although things aren’t working out the way you want or everyone around you is succeeding but you aren’t, never lose yourself and have hope and motivation in yourself, because in the end, your own hard work and determination will get you to where you want to be.