Uncertainty ahead

Over the summer, as I sat on my family’s faded blue couch and contemplated the imminence of my junior year, I noticed in myself an unusual feeling mixed with the usual anticipation and excitement: panic. And this panic wasn’t about grades or a return to the constant pileup of assignments—it was about what will happen after I leave this school and make a life outside these gates. I tend to worry about future events a long time before they’re slated to happen, so I assumed I was the only junior feeling this way. But when I got back to campus, I found I wasn’t alone. Among my liberal arts major friends who are also juniors, this panic was endemic to our class, as we realized for the first time that our futures weren’t secure or stable, and that soon we’d have to make some big decisions to get our lives rolling as independent adults. My senior friends only made this worse, most of them saying something along the lines of, “If you think it’s scary now, just wait till next year!” This feeling seemed to even infect people in the so-called “practical” majors: As I write this, my roommate, an economics major, has just mournfully told me, “I have no idea what I’m doing with my life!” I’ve started referring to it as “mid-college crisis.”

The panic is very real, but is it justified? Are we all cracking under the strain of too much competition, or is my future really going to involve employment at a string of coffee shops, while I wait in vain for someone to offer me my dream job? I’ve heard both defenses of and attacks on the liberal arts, ideological justifications and blatant scoffing, reassurances and bleak prophecies. But none of it gets at the main point. As juniors, whether our courses of study are practical or career-wise or fulfilling is almost irrelevant—the ship’s already sailed, and we can’t redo the past two years. What I think we’re really asking is this: “When I graduate, will I find a job that will enable me to stay alive without making my soul feel like it’s slowly being killed? And how much should I be worrying about that right now?”

Looking at the facts, it’s hard to know what to think. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, academic major is the biggest factor in determining whether a student will get a job offer before graduation—and the academic majors that fare the best are the ones you’d expect, like accounting and business. However, verbal communication skills top the list of key abilities that employers look for when hiring new college graduates. (Maybe I have a chance after all?) And I’m well aware that your major doesn’t define your career. For instance, I know plenty of adults who no longer work in the fields they majored in—and some who never worked in those fields in the first place. I’m beginning to suspect that my future may remain inscrutable, and that I can’t find an answer to the first half of my question that’s any more conclusive than “maybe.”

That still leaves one final question—is it wise to be so worried? Whether or not our job prospects are promising after we graduate, it’s certain that the panic doesn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. If worrying about something ensured success, there would be no need for any of us to study come midterms—but as we’ve all discovered, it doesn’t quite work like that. In particular, the frantic fear that causes our stomachs to drop does almost nothing but darken the circles under our eyes and rob us of the ability to enjoy the beautiful fall weather or the free food that seems omnipresent at the start of each year. A sense of urgency at the midway point, to take what time we have left and make the most of college while we’re still here, might serve us better. As we come to terms with the fact that nothing lasts forever and we might not get perfect jobs right away, we should be inspired to enjoy what we have right now, and be glad that we had the privilege to study in such a great city at a great university—whether or not we studied accounting.

Kathryn Brill is a Barnard College junior majoring in English. She is a member of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. We Should Talk runs alternate Mondays.