If I get asked that question one more time, I’m gonna scream. Fellow seniors, you know the one. The one your family only ever asks when your mouth is stuffed full of green beans, or you’re in the car unable to escape, or when you’re casually telling a funny story and they cut you off to raise an eyebrow and ask: So, what’s next?
I’ve got a handful of stock responses, if you’re looking for them:
- Graduating, hopefully
- Joining the circus. I’ll be taming the lions.
- It’s the thing that happens after the current event
- *non-committed hand gestures paired with an animated facial expression of distress*
The downside of graduating college in the midst of no less than five global crises is that there doesn’t really feel like there is a next. And I’m not talking about nihilism, or existentialism, or any of the other –isms people tend to throw around when they feel like they’ve been cheated in life. I’m talking about the weird emptiness that coincides with spending half of your college career sequestered away in your room, staring at Zoom cells and waiting for the waves of despair to subside so you can screw your brain on tight enough to focus on doing homework for at least a little while. I don’t feel like a graduating college student, I feel like a very confused sophomore who just woke up from one of those deep, jarring naps. Where did all of the time go?
Right now, I’m watching all my friends subscribe to the future: They’re getting jobs, going to grad school, finding apartments, winning awards. And I’m happy for them— I am— but it keeps making me think about how, in less than a month, I’m going to be packing all of my stuff into my car and moving back into my mother’s house for the foreseeable future. No plan, no job, no further academic validation.
Part of the problem is that I don’t even know what I want. Pre-pandemic, I would have told you that I wanted to go into film. Before college, I would have told you that the only thing I don’t want is to go into journalism. Now, my entire resume is padded with short internet videos and writing credits for the school’s news site.
I feel like I don’t have the experience to do any “real” jobs. I feel unaccomplished. My friends were joining and creating clubs, going abroad, making friends and connections and memories. I don’t have a manuscript. I don’t have a resume as thick as War and Peace. I’ve never even left the country. I feel like I’ve missed out on all the crucial bits of college, all the little ways you’re supposed to prepare yourself for the impending future. I feel like I’ve failed.
And none of this is to feel sorry for myself— I’ve loved (most of) my time at college. I’ve made incredible friends, I’ve done things I never have fathomed doing in high school (there was a brief period of time where I was on the Ultimate Frisbee team), and I’ve had the opportunity to write for and help run Loco Mag. I’m proud of all the things I’ve created in my time here. I’ve liked all my classes. I’ve managed an appropriate ratio of ill-advised to academic accomplishments. I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had, and I don’t think it’s uncommon to feel the weight of it coming to an end.
When I think about leaving college, I get sad— not just because I feel unprepared, but because I know how much I’m going to miss. My friends live all around the country, and we’re not going to be 5 minutes away from each other anymore. I won’t be able to knock on my roommate’s door at midnight anymore to ask her if she wants to get Wawa. I can’t go sledding on the green, or gag over Chat food, or hog a computer in the video lab for hours on end. I won’t be agonizing over classes that will, eventually, make me feel like I’ve accomplished something.
When people ask me what comes next, I want to tell them that they’re asking the wrong person. I don’t know! I’ve never known! My five-year plan is a ton of question marks and one doodle of a fart. I wish I knew what I wanted to do. I wish I had as many concrete answers as all of the peers LinkedIn keeps telling me to congratulate. (I actually think LinkedIn is more passive aggressive about it than my mother, by the way. It sends me updates on all of my peers’ careers every single day.)
So, what’s next? Creating, I hope. I want to keep talking about the things I love, and complaining about the things I don’t. I want to keep in touch with the people I care about. I want a paycheck, and I don’t want to hate my job. I want to eat good food. I want to never hear another AJR song ever again. I want to pet cats. I want to laugh.
But I can’t say that to my family, so what I say is, “Job applications.” It’s not like it’s a lie.
