When this issue hits stands, I will have walked across the stage at Hamilton Place with my diploma in hand. Graduation is an exciting day for everyone, but the date is significant for me.
Two years ago, almost to the day, I was sitting in my bedroom in Westdale, calling my parents to tell them I think I had to drop out of school and move back home.
My fight against depression and anxiety was not going well: I had no motivation to go to class, did not pay attention to deadlines and felt alone after ending a relationship in the summer.
Dropping out was the right decision, but it haunted me for a while. It meant that everything would have to be delayed a year and the plan I had was junk now.
I started at McMaster in Sept. 2011, coming to the Hammer wide-eyed with high expectations for the next four years.
My original plan was getting my honours Bachelor of Arts degree at McMaster in the Communications program and then go into a sports journalism program at Centennial College.
I wanted to be done in four years, because that is how we talk about most university programs. “It’s a four-year program,” you say to your family at the holiday gatherings, further cementing the arbitrary deadline. I continued to hold myself to that expectation after I dropped out, wondering how this would affect my life moving forward.
It didn’t.
I came back from the year off with momentum. I spent the summer working an amazing internship, I was taking four classes instead of five a semester and I had strategies for coping with my mental health.
Taking the time off allowed me to come back and truly be successful in everything I was trying to do, not just put in the time to get towards that June 2015 finish line.
As university costs rise and the prospects for employment after graduation continue to shrink, I think more students will feel like they have to complete the four-year sprint and I worry about the impact that is going to have on our mental health.
Yes, there is a cost to stretching your undergraduate career, like rent or the opportunity cost of not working full-time. But the flipside is the toll on your personal wellbeing and that is more important than debt.
Ignore the pressures of a plan you set out when you were 18 and figure out what is best for you. Maybe it’s a year off, maybe you can fly through the degree in three years.
Don’t hold yourself to the four-year program ideology like I did. Finding success doesn’t mean you have to take the same path as everyone else.
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“What are you doing next year?”
As graduation looms over the graduating class of 2016, we are confronted with this question asked by friends and family. For some, the answer is straightforward — I’m going to graduate school or I have a job lined up. But for many the answer is barely known, and the future consists of silhouettes you can scarcely make out. Throughout our lives and especially in our time at McMaster, we’ve all gone through momentous periods of change, where we’ve matured and begun the process of becoming a functioning adult. But now it seems like none of it compares to what’s coming next after we throw our graduation caps into the air.
For many, graduation will be the first time that our lives are not following a linear narrative, where we’ll be tossed out into the job market with our student debt, where we have to look for a place to rent and where we have to finally learn to do our own taxes. I’ve been told that it’s not easy, and as someone going through this same process, I don’t have comforting words to say, except that we should approach it with optimism and excitement. If we have to go through this period of transition, we might as well try to make it fun.
Haven’t spoken at length about graduation with quite a few of my friends, one thing I noticed was that some jaded people approach graduation with disappointment and cynicism. I’ve heard many variations of the “I’m going to graduate and wipe my ass with my Bachelor of Arts because that’s all it’ll be good for.” To these folks I want to say that you shouldn’t discredit everything you’ve learned in your years at McMaster. It may not have been the key to a job and adulthood as promised, but it was not for naught. Beyond your academic growth, think of the relationships you’ve made, all the things about the world that you’ve learned. Without my time at McMaster, I would be blissfully unaware of what intersectionality means, and still subscribe to an overly simplistic and insufficient understanding of oppression. University made you a better person.
Was university what I expected? Not really. I was told that I’d make lifelong relationships here, and while there are a few people I love dearly, the truth is that I probably won’t talk to a majority of the people I met at Mac once we go our separate ways back to where we’re from. In the first year after graduation, visiting Facebook and LinkedIn will be difficult as you see where all your friends are going and you feel the need to compare yourself and see how you stack up on an arbitrary scale. You won’t be in the same place anymore, all working towards the exams in April.
On top of all of this, there’s the usual deluge of assignments and tests due in March, as well as the realization that you’re going through a lot of lasts: last midterm, last formal, last coffeehouse. It’s a difficult time, but you’ve already made it this far.
There’s no two ways about it; we’re leaving a community that was probably the most understanding and accepting. You’ll never experience this again. But like Dr. Seuss said, “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
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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.
