The conversation seems to halt as the third person of the night has asked me what I plan on doing after graduation. Where will you go? What will you do? These questions are strung together because people are curious (I don’t blame them). The only issue? I don’t actually know any of the answers. I give my preplanned answers and receive various nods and murmurs of approval. But, in the back of my mind I know the real question I ask myself as graduation looms: “Who will I be?”

Postgrad is, for many, the first time in one's life where there is no given structure. Everyone is on a different timeline (or so they say), and you are in control, entirely, of yourself. I take this opportunity to mean that I am also to blame if things do not work out as I hoped. And perhaps you are reading this and can’t relate (good for you, I’m jealous). But I know that most people around me do have these questions because it seems as though there is no right way to approach life after graduating. 

Some people take this freedom to be a liberating sentence and I guess on the surface it is. But truthfully I find that people feel worried or unsatisfied with their postgrad choices because of the unprompted advice fourth years unfortunately receive. And the advice seems to pull each of us in different directions: continue your studies, travel, work, live at home, move, save money, spend it. There seems to be infinite ways to approach life after graduating and according to the advice I get from family members, peers, and random blurbs on Linkedin, there is an obvious choice. But realistically when you take time to look at the options, there isn’t a clear choice and I think that admitting that is actually the scary part. 

There is also an added pressure when going to a prestigious university. If you don’t have the perfect Linkedin post when you graduate (and instagram dump to match) you clearly did not do what you needed to at university. It is expected to reach graduation and have a plan. No one wants to share that they are moving back home and figuring it out slowly. But I warn people against choosing a job they loathe, or a masters program from panic. Because you also don’t want to say in a year that you hate your choice and you only made it to please others. This train of thought leads me to believe perhaps it is not the fear of the choices, but the fear of making the wrong one that is so daunting. So, to assist with that fear let me just say there is no right one. There will be stress at the perfect job, there will be regret on the perfect travels. If you are going to be stressed or regret your decision no matter what, choose what you want. Don’t do something to impress your peers, your parents, or your partner. 

Now this is obviously easier said than done, and I might be a hypocrite and applying to panic masters in a couple weeks. But I hope that this message puts into perspective that whatever choice you think is the right one, there is someone making that exact choice that has their own complete basket of regrets. To my knowledge there is not a single person who has postgrad figured out in their final year. The worries are different: some people worry about getting a job, others worry about moving to a new city, and others worry that their time at university is the best they will ever experience. I personally fall into the category of worrying about all of these possibilities and more. But I have come to the conclusion (perhaps naively) that there is no right way to approach postgrad and I refuse to have the regret of worrying about how to solve this impossible problem.