I don't know what to do.

[Faye]

I am terrified of what will come after I finish college.

I need to sign up for placement exams or send applications or both soon, and I really just don't know what direction to take. Every dream that I once had and was inspired by has been destroyed by my time in school. I've realized all my hopes are impossible. I can't see myself enjoying anything that I can potentially do, and by 'enjoy' I mean do without contemplating suicide as a result of doing it.

Maybe I will just end up living in a cardboard box.

 

[AUM]

I'm on the same boat as you Dragon. I'm graduating in December, and up till now, I hadn't thought of what to do after I graduate. I'll probably be trying to find a job just to pay my student loans (which should take me about two years), and after that, who knows. Travel, maybe? *shrug*

What hopes that you call impossible do you have? Just curious.

 

[acd]

Two years to pay your loans off?! I'll be making payments until I'm 70.

 

[AUM]

Two years to pay your loans off?! I'll be making payments until I'm 70.

My university is kind of cheap, so I didn't have to take out that many loans.

BTW, my condolences on your life-long debt. I hope whatever your career you picked was worth it.

 

[korena18]

I'm also in school, but I don't finish my AA till next year. And, just when I think I know what I want to do when I 'grow up,' I change my mind again. I can't decide if I want to be a technical writer, an ethics ombudsman, a project manager, or whatever. The one good thing I have going for me, though, is that even though I'm underemployed, I'm happy where I work. I think that is a payoff I could never get from having a degree. This is not to say that I don't value my higher education. To the contrary, my education has allowed me to view the world from angles I had never known existed.

My point is that although you may feel like your hopes and dreams have been lost while being in school, this is not to say that you can't make new hopes and dreams. Or, perhaps you can downsize your dreams if they were initially lofty. Ultimately, life should be about your happiness. "Find your bliss."

 

[Lerxst]

I changed majors 3 times in college and it took me 5 1/2 years to graduate. If there's one thing I would change, I would have continued on to a graduate school right after my bachelor's. Right now I'm looking at MS/PhD programs and I need a small fortune with nothing but 100% free time on my hands. At least if I were younger, paying off a student loan for one of these programs would be feasible. Right now, I'd graduate by the time I was 40 and be in debt until I died.

The biggest challenge I had after graduation was realizing I was a perfect fit for non-profit work after working for Corporate America and wanting to kill most of the human population after a few years (and being driven towards borderline alcoholism).

My education came close to $60,000 and I have yet to work a job that pays that much for a yearly salary, if that tells you something. Luckily those loans are paid off, but it took a lot of years of crappy work to do so.