Two-thirds of my way through college, planning for the future has not gotten easier.
College is a unique form of limbo where the whole point is to gain skills that will benefit us in our future careers, and yet we don’t know what the future may hold, especially in the current job market. Since there is no single “correct” path through college, we are left to wonder if we are filling our resumes with enough jobs, internships and extracurriculars to make college worth it.
Given this uncertainty, navigating college life can feel like sailing through a dense fog, impossible to truly gauge what may help you and what opportunities you are even qualified for at the moment.
That’s why comparing ourselves to our fellow students is so tempting — it makes us feel like there is an official guide to college; a lighthouse in the fog.
Having done more than my fair share of LinkedIn scrolling, it’s hard not to feel simultaneously over- and under-prepared for life after graduation. It feels rewarding when you have unique experiences under your belt, but the constant barrage of your friends and peers doing things you haven’t makes it easy to feel inadequate.
As such, while it may be tempting to use comparison to measure how you are doing in college, it’s not good to dwell on these side-by-side views of career progress.
University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication assistant director of Career and Employer Engagement Lee Burke said comparisons in career progress are really difficult to make. We all have different hidden responsibilities, availability and connections that make our situations vastly different from one another.
“The important piece of this is that we don’t know what’s going on below the surface,” Burke said. “I think about this like when we scroll through Instagram and we see that perfect golden hour photo of our friend, we don’t know how many takes that photo took. That might be number five, number nine, or number 26.”
Factors outside of our control, such as money, connections, commute and family obligations, all play roles in our ability to take advantage of opportunities we have in college. As such, we shouldn’t be so quick to judge ourselves for being ‘behind the curve’ on career preparation simply by comparing ourselves with others.
According to Burke, you don’t have to decide your entire career in college, and the important thing is to keep learning through the various experiences you do have, especially given how frequently people change jobs in today’s career market.
“There’s never really going to be an ‘enough’ in the sense that there are always going to be things to learn,” Burke said. “And so I think the important things to think about are ‘What do you want to learn first?’ and ‘What do you want to do first?’”
Besides, just because we haven’t taken advantage of a particular opportunity yet doesn’t mean we won’t in the future. Both people and career paths change quite often.
University counselor education professor Sherri Turner said, while college is meant to help you get ready for the first step in your career, there is still plenty of learning to be done on the job, and it’s important to remain open to learning more.
“Some of the big skills you learn in college are to be open, to be flexible, to communicate well, to be a team player,” Turner said. “Those are huge skills over and above anything in your major.”
While seeking out common opportunities, like internships, can be helpful, life has a way of presenting new opportunities to you in unexpected ways. Two of the three jobs I hold at the moment are due to connections I made during my coursework — connections that others in my majors may not have had access to.
Burke said students should work to not overwhelm themselves with a wave of activities and instead be more strategic, finding a balance that is personally fulfilling while still identifying what they can take away from every opportunity.
“It’s important for students to not focus solely on academics and the end goal, because you’re paying a lot of money to be in college and it’s important to enjoy the ride along with all of the other things,” Burke said.
As someone who frequently overworks himself, I have struggled to find that balance, overfilling my schedule out of fear that I am not doing enough or that I’ll have difficulty finding a job in the fields I am interested in.
However, I have started to find a way out of that guilt by instead focusing on getting the most out of the opportunities I have, rather than wishing I could do more. This mindset helps break out of the comparison loop and puts your own experiences above what you may feel pressured to do.
Turner said we should keep looking back on our progress to stay open to new opportunities and ensure that we are doing things that have intrinsic value to us instead of just seeking money or success.
“Reflect on your career path as you go,” Turner said. “Reflect on ‘Has this been something that I really like to do?’ Don’t find yourself in a grind.”
College is a transitional period in life, sure, but it is also formative. It’s not the judge of what you can be or do for the rest of your life, but the extra boost to get you there.
So, instead of hyper-examining the career paths of our peers, we should pay a little more attention to our own experiences. Only you can decide what value you get out of college, so let’s make the most of it — whatever ‘the most’ is to you.
