"What do you want to do after you graduate?"
It's the burning question that everyone asks and to which very few of us really know the answer. Because of the fact that students feel pressured to choose a major and a general path when they apply to college, they try to pretend like they know, choosing something they think they wouldn't mind doing for the rest of their lives. However, often times, a lot of us find ourselves not liking where we're headed, switching majors, and doubting everything down to our day-to-day actions.
This question can make your stomach churn, make you break a sweat, and make you feel like the walls are closing in all around you. It did the very same thing to me when I chose to go into Marketing Communications... and when I hated every minute of it.
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Going into college, I wanted two things: I wanted to help people, and I wanted to love what I did, having it change so I felt like every day was different. Well, every minute I spent in classes, I daydreamed about my future, and what I saw was a cubicle; I saw myself sitting in the very same cubicle every day for the rest of my life. I saw myself scrambling for a job after college and settling on doing marketing for a big company. So, every repetitive day, I'd be helping... the rich get richer. Great. Cue panic mode. Phone calls were made every day twice a day to my parents. Tears were also shed every day twice a day to my parents. I missed studying psychology, which my school at the time didn't even offer.
Psychology was something I loved to learn about, and it was a great occupation to go in if I wanted to help others. My mom, being the angel that she is, suggested a career as a Child Life Specialist, and that was when everything clicked.
Child Life Specialists work in hospitals, counseling families and their kids, who may be going into surgery, recovering from an injury, learning to cope with a new disability, or trying to understand what a terminal illness might mean for them. This was it; children are the perfect example of something different every day, and I love kids! Children are some of the strongest, purest, and most resilient human beings on our planet. And in this field, I'd be helping people who truly need it. Kids and families have a hard time dealing with physical therapy alone. To be able to help them with the mental aspect of coping with injury and illness would be the ultimate honor and privilege.
So, I transferred and changed my course of study, and now I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. But if you're a college student scouring this article for the key to figuring that out, you might be disappointed, because even I'm still not satisfied.
Having the career box checked off, I've realized that there's more to the question than that. What do I want to do after college? I want to help people, I want to travel, I want to be with my family, and I want to start a family of my own. Our careers are huge aspects of our lives and personalities, but if I can offer any advice, it's to stop worrying so much about what you want to be, and really think about who you want to be.
At the end of my life, I want to be able to say I was a Child Life Specialist, but I don't want the list to end there. Many refer to their jobs as their "nine-to-fives." So if you're in college and you're worrying about your job, take a step back. Think about the fact that in the other sixteen hours of the day, you'll be able to be a mother, father, sister, brother, friend, adventurer, volunteer, or whatever it is that will make you happy.
You'll figure out what you want to do eventually; you'll look and look and something will finally just feel right. In the meantime, look at the people you love and the opportunities around you. Take whatever chances you are offered to become someone you will truly be happy being, beyond what it says under the 'Career' section of your Facebook profile. Make sure that the 'Memories' and 'Photos' sections are filled too, because later on in life, when we're reminiscing about "the good old days," I have a feeling those days will be more about the people we were, rather than the positions we held.
