By: Feven Yeshanew 

What are your plans once you are done school? Are you applying to grad school once you graduate? Med school? Law school? What program are you in now? What kind of jobs can you get with your degree?

Since when did going to school and conversing with others become an interview regarding my ten-year life plan? We are not psychics, and we don’t have a crystal ball that can see into the future. But as I go into the fourth and final year of my undergraduate degree, I find myself bombarded with the buzz of urgency to figure out the next big move. The incessant way conversations seem to continuously circle the topic of the future causes students both panic and frustration.

For the past three years at McMaster, I have been cosily bubbled in by the idea that my future will figure itself out, and I’ve been dismissing the looming questions of the future. However we will soon be forced to depart from the ever so snuggly bubble and make some “serious” life decisions. With the increased competition for what seems like everything and the growing youth unemployment rates, the idea of graduating can be very daunting.

Now, add in these intimidating questions into the mix, and you’ve got yourself an existential crisis. I had my own angst-induced breakdown this summer, where the pressure of not knowing what I wanted to do following graduation got to me – just as I’m sure it’s getting to most of my fourth year peers. For those of you who know what you’re doing, huzzah! You may be applying to your med schools, your grad schools, your dream jobs, but not everyone is in the same boat. In fact, the unknown collectively daunts those of us who are unsure.

Similar to my fellow fourth year students who have experienced much of the same emotions, I made it to the other side of my meltdown alive and with some insight; it’s okay to be planless. It’s especially okay to not know the next fifty steps of your life. I understand this may be hard to accept. Although most of us need a job to provide us with the money for survival, this said job in no way needs to be the one you do for the rest of your life. Sometimes trial and error results in the best outcomes. Perhaps the best plans are not linear, but are with no particular direction.

We hear of quotes that speak of life as a journey and not a destination, so why is it instilled in our minds that our lives need to be prearranged as if we’re trying reach an arbitrary finish line?

Sometimes the best things in life spring from the unexpected and the unplanned. The only thing left to do is embrace this uncertainty. If you do not know whether to continue in school, get a job, or travel, try your hand at all three or take comfort in knowing that taking time to figure out what feels right is okay.

As for me, I have decided to put off applying to medical school and take a gap year. During this time, I hope to work abroad and acquire a different kind of knowledge that textbooks fall short of providing.

Perhaps we will find our dreams in the unexpected, in a way that we would have never known if we stuck to a single linear plan. Most of all, know that you are not alone in the midst of this frustrating buzz.

Stephen Murray
The Silhouette

Though the school year has just started, many undergraduates in the final year of their bachelor programs are starting to give serious consideration to what comes next. A popular option is graduate school. I feel that this option is highly appealing because of the widespread perception that “if some education is good, then more must be better.” After all, our generation has been inculcated with the belief that education (regardless of what field it is in) is the silver bullet for getting a good job. This is only partly accurate. While it is true that for many prestigious careers, a graduate degree is either a requirement or a strong asset, it is also true that many people think this way, and, as a result, there are enormous gluts of labour supply in these job markets - for instance, just ask someone looking for a tenure-track professorship. In addition, a graduate degree is perceived as a means of delaying one’s entry into the “real world” - with the added bonus that it gives the impression that one’s undergraduate degree is being put to good use, which, in today’s job market, is increasingly difficult to do.

As a seasoned grad school veteran (entering what is hopefully the final year of my mechanical engineering PhD here at McMaster - my MSc was in math, also obtained here at Mac), I humbly offer some advice for those considering grad school - though please bear in mind that my perspective is necessarily skewed by my science/engineering background.

The most important piece of advice is this: “Because I don’t know what else to do with my life” is not a good reason to attend grad school. If you are not completely sure grad school is for you, you may want to consider getting some real world experience; spend some time working, or get another set of more professionally oriented skills. Though if you do choose to take some time away from an academic environment, be cautioned that if the skills you applied in academia are not regularly practiced, then your proficiency can rapidly fade. After my BSc (in math), I spent two years working, volunteering and traveling - in retrospect, this was too much of a gap. As a result I spent much time simply catching up when I started my MSc.

In most cases, one is guaranteed money from teaching/research assistantships, which amount to a modest wage - though of course the amount of funding varies widely between programs and schools. Also when applying to grad schools, be sure to do your homework regarding potential sources of external funding.

The skills which determine success in undergrad are not necessarily the same skills which determine success in grad school. In your undergrad, you were spoon-fed material in lectures, which you rehearsed and regurgitated on tests. If you were good at this, you likely received much positive reinforcement, fueling your desire to continue doing something you’re good at. However in grad programs you often aren’t simply asked to answer questions - you have to figure out what the unanswered questions are, and whether you have the tools to answer them. This, I assure you, is much more difficult. You will need to work with considerably more independence, and from my experience, it took a long time to adjust to not having someone tell me exactly what to do. I have found that a useful strategy for independently working is to regularly write research reports - simply articulating things has a surprising ability to clarify what the questions are, and whether one is taking the appropriate steps to answer them.

Your grad school discipline does not necessarily have to be the exact same as your undergrad discipline. As mentioned, I’m currently a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering, whereas my BSc and MSc were in math - the important thing is that you have (or can develop) the appropriate skills to do the job. Do your homework regarding your potential supervisors. I think the most important quality you can look for is whether your supervisors will actually have time for you - for me, regular meetings are absolutely essential for keeping the project on track. Also, research seldom goes according to plan, hence the expectations of supervisors and supervisees may not be made explicit, and as a result can be hugely mismatched - for example, supervisors might have a tacit expectation that the research results also be made into publications. Also, students might have unrealistically high expectations of what they will produce - the result of much grad student research is so arcane that few other people will care. So when discussing a project with potential supervisors, be clear about what the expectations are. Be sure to get advice from current grad students working under your prospective supervisor - they can often be counted upon for an objective opinion, since they likely do not have an incentive to misinform you.

Despite the best-laid plans, there is the chance that once you get to grad school, the experience is worse than expected. There will be a strong temptation to embrace an idle and fashionable ennui about grad school - largely due to the presence of other grad students who casually express cynical dissatisfaction with their career choice (or, should I say, lack of career choice) while at the same time sipping their lattes and doing absolutely nothing about it. As is true with many things in life, you gotta know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. If you truly feel that your grad program will not yield a good return on investment, take some initiative and do something about it - change projects, change supervisors, change programs, or quit and seek opportunity elsewhere.

Palika Kohli
Student Health Education Centre

Last summer I had what I’ve now termed my “mid-undergraduate-crisis.” Until then, I hadn’t realized how stressful figuring out my future could be. It was always a vague haze, far away from my present, and I gave it an equally vague, hazy title that would somehow sound concrete. I realized that not only the path I had always imagined myself taking was one of many, but also that I basically knew nothing about that initial path in the first place.

It was all very confused. I switched my projected career path about three times, gave my parents conniptions and took the mandatory trip to Europe to “figure myself out.”

How I determined my future path might not be how you choose to consider yours. But what I realized is that it’s never too early to think about your future. The worst that can happen is that you’ll change your mind.

And if you don’t know where to start, here are some tips and resources that I have found to be pretty useful.