To those of you panicking about what career you're going to have post education, take a seat, I'll let you in on a secret about deciding on a career and actually getting where you want to be. To sum it up, work hard, take advantage of opportunities, and eventually those two things will intersect to set you up for success. Easier said than done, so I'll explain further since this whole building a career thing isn't actually linear.
When I was in college, I had no real idea of what I wanted to be when I finally entered "the real world" (plot twist: college is also the real world, but like the lite version). What I wanted to do changed week to week. I entered college thinking I would major in biology and get into genetics. By my second year of college, I thought I wanted to coach college soccer, which lead me to working in an athletics department. Oddly enough, I found myself working as a marketing intern. One thing led to another and a few years later here I am working in college athletics doing marketing. And that could change overnight, because sometimes your career changes before your eyes. Embrace it. Remember, a career isn't a linear thing always. Even in the super early stages of choosing your major and getting internships, you may find you want to do other things.
If you're studying accounting one day, but find yourself planning events for your career, ask yourself if you really have an issue with that change. There's nothing wrong with wanting to change your career. Whether that change is within a certain industry or even across industries. There's nothing wrong with having diverse interests, especially when it comes to what you spend a good portion of your waking hours doing. We're all human, so we all have various motives and desires. Just because you majored in human biology doesn't mean you can't start your own house painting business. We feel so confined to follow a linear track through life that we think will ultimately end in happiness. Fun fact, you're in control of that more so than whatever career you have. Yes, your career can provide you fulfillment, but that doesn't always equal happiness.
People have asked why and how I've found myself here as a young professional. I usually give a halfhearted response about being in the right place at the right time. And it's kinda true. Many of friends with their careers in various fields (genetics, engineering, business, etc.) might even say something similar about an opportunity presenting itself and them taking advantage of it. Because, often, that's really all it takes to find yourself somewhere you might not have ever considered.
There's no special book of life that has answers in the back about finding your career (this applies to love, happiness, and most other things we're pursuing in life). So as you have a moment of panic about what you're going to do with the rest of your life, take a breath. You don't have to know tomorrow, at the end of the semester, or even when you want to graduate. Don't take this as sit and wait until you know what you want. Go seek opportunities to better inform yourself about what you want to spend time doing to have income. Prepare yourself to succeed in opportunities that come along, and that will be a foundation for building your career.
