I just graduated from college and my husband has one semester left. Clearly, Real Life will soon be poking its ugly head into our lives. We went to visit his parents for Christmas this year, and his father tried to insist that we answer his question: “What do you guys want to do with your lives?” He wants to know about career plans, and such. It’s possible that he wants to know so that he can try to help us find jobs - he has connections at a nearby goverment lab.
However, we can’t answer him. I have a part-time job with a new observatory that isn’t even built yet. I’d be perfectly happy keeping this job , but it isn’t really a career type job. I’m not very ambitious. To me, a job is what pays my rent and food bills. My husband doesn’t know what kind of job he wants after he has to leave his student job - he’s been applying for all sorts of things.
But my father-in-law positively insists that we must know what we want to do with our lives, and as soon as we stop lying and telling him we don’t know, everything will be so much better.
So, I’d like to take a poll: how many of you had some sort of life plan when you graduated from college (undergrad degree)? Further, those of you that did, how many of you stuck to those plans and ended up happy or at least not unhappy with life?
I did not have a plan when I graduated, but I had started one within a month. I don’t think I was 100% committed to it at first, but I’ve stayed with it for 22 years and it’s worked out to be a career I can enjoy.
In retrospect, a lot of my friends also made big decisions over a few short weeks at some point, and headed off to careers they’d never considered just months before.
Since you are soon to be a college graduate and you are already married you are pretty much an adult and not answerable to your father-in-law.
At the very least, you should have an idea of what kind of lifestyle you want to live and the minimum amount of money you will require to live that lifestyle.
I’m thirty, I have an MBA and a degree in engineering and still no “life plan”.
No life plan whatsoever. It really bothered me; I felt I had done something wrong and I even wished I had majored in a very specific thing (like education) so I knew what I would be doing with the rest of my life.
My parents and my professors worked hard to talk me out of that mindset, because adulthood is long and times change and at 21, how could I possibly know all the things I might be good at? So I kicked around a little, learning a lot about what I liked and didn’t like. One of my better jobs, incidentally, was working with an Elderhostel group–they’re retirees who enroll in week-long courses that are combined with a vacation package. Spending time with people in their 60s and 70s helped me realize how long life is, and how much time I had to figure myself out.
Later I went to grad school (still not entirely sure what I’d do afterwards) and while there stumbled upon a perfect job and career for me. So yeah, it took me until I was 30, but who cares?
When I graduated college I already had a job - I had studied Computer Science and Marketing, and knew that Computer Science is what I wanted to go towards. 6 years later, I am still a computer programmer (which is something I love) - I was lucky to come straight out of college and know what I loved to do.
Long term - I have no idea what I will do with my life. My job responsibilities are changing - I am going from being responsible for one part of the process into being more involved in the whole lifecycle - and as I get more involved, things change. I have no idea where I will be 5 years from now - I know there are some things that I say today I do not want to be, but five years from now I will be older and (hopefully) wiser.
I don’t believe in a strict life plan - life throws us too many curves. For me, my life plan is to live a life that makes me happy - and that is goal enough for me.
In my senior year, I was in this anthropology seminar of about 8-10 people, all graduating seniors. The first class after thanksgiving, we spent the entire class period discussing how we all received A Talk containing The Question in one form or another, and how it had completely demoralized us, and none of us had any clue what we were going to do with our lives. Our professor said his dad still asked him what he going to do with his life. sigh
I graduated last May, and I still don’t have any kind of career life plan.
Of course I got a completely useless degree in Fine Arts, which is a field that does not exactly lend itself to a real grown-up career.
I was a Writing minor, too, and I’m hoping to maybe do something with that someday, if the opportunity arises. But I don’t have any specific career-type goal in mind. I’m working on a novel, if that counts.
I’m working part-time in a store right now, and I’m perfectly happy with that job. It’s not a long term thing, but it’s fine for now. In fact, I think I’d be satisfied with a series of short term things. I work a little, and I have time for art and writing. I’m happy with having a simple lifestyle; I don’t need much stuff.
Grad school is still a maybe-someday thing. I’d like to go to grad school – or even get another undergrad degree – just for the education. I don’t want a career; I can’t think of a job I would want that I would need a degree for.
Thanks for the replies, guys. I don’t feel so deficient now - yay, we’re not the only ones who don’t know what we’re doing.
fish in the sky, you sound kind of like me My job right now sometimes calls for “computer stuff” - I occasionally fix the printer or hook up a computer to the network. But mostly it’s errands and paperwork, and I wouldn’t mind keeping it. I make jewelry in my spare time and maybe someday I’ll be good enough to sell some of it, or maybe someday I’ll go back to school (I liked school). I’ve never been ambitous, and it seems like one quality in a young person that parental figures don’t get is a lack of ambition. sigh
Tell pop in law that you’ll follow whatever makes you happy!