A Persistant Myth

There’s a persistent myth where university is concerned that, even if you don’t know what you want to do when you arrive, by the time you start your third year you will know exactly what you want to do with your life. What’s more, you will have a plan of exactly how to get there, right down to the job you will get when you graduate.

Yeah, no…

I am a third year, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. And most of my friends who are third years also have no clue. We are doing everything we can to figure it out – career service meetings, looking at post graduate degrees, the works – but I can’t imagine that come May I will have any better idea of what I want to do than I do now.

In fact, I think I can safely say that I have better idea of what I don’t want to do than of what I do. This may come as a surprise to some people, but I have realised that I don’t actually want to be a journalist. I love my degree, but not the idea of having to go out, talk to sources, collect stories and the like. It’s fun, and maybe one day I will go back to it. But right now, no. It’s not what I want to do.

What I want to know though, is why is there such an obsession with everyone knowing exactly what they want to do with their life. Sometimes it feels like being stuck in Soviet Russia, with their oppressive five year plans. My lecturers are telling me that I need to think about where I want to be in a year, then in five years, and then in ten.

What’s wrong with taking it a day at a time? With figuring out what you want to do at your own pace?  I like where I am right now, my life is going pretty well. Yes the concept of life after university is a little scary, but I am reasonably sure that in a year I will find myself in a house, with a job and a steady internet connection, even if that job isn’t in the field I want to be in.

It has something to do with my faith I think. I know that through all the challengers of the last few years, that God has not abandoned me. I know I wouldn’t have got to university without him, and I know that he will provide a job when I need one. He hasn’t let me down yet, and I don’t think he’s going to start soon.

Would I be happier if I knew exactly where I am going to be in a year? Quite possibly, I have that type of brain. But at the same time, I am looking forward to finding out. It’s going to be an adventure and one that I am very much looking forward to experiencing