As a college student, you may feel at a crossroads in your life. You don't know what to do with your life, and you're not sure what the next step is. Therefore, I thought today that I would compile all those thoughts, and I don't know cause maybe you would relate to them.
👉 Table Of Content (TOC).
- Introduction
- Train yourself to be a people person.
- Be fit and active.
- Start a hobby.
- Take a break.
- Find an internship.
- Work on a research.
- Self Employment.
- Side gigs.
- Build a website.
- Don't ever plan to go back to school.
- Conclusion.
Introduction.
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An average plan for a college graduate is to get a degree that allows you to get your feet in the door, land your dream job, get a promotion, and pursue this good path. And you may consider that other than this path is considered a complete failure.
But as you may already know, it is not that realistic for most graduates. And that's completely fine. The fact that we, as human beings, are born and raised in different cultures, places, and families can influence a lot of diversity in our professional life. Apparently, you are not the only one going down that road that doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, and the reality is way more than that.
What stresses me the most is whenever I decide to make decisions. For instance, having gaps on my resume, I don't want to miss opportunities and make the most of my time. In other words, uncertainty can sometimes be the most stressful thing you may ever encounter. For example, you may become aware and wonder how much time it will take to land your first entry-level job.
This situation is extremely stressful, and you need to find a way to handle it. I believe in taking care of yourself and always maintaining a positive attitude, given that things do pass so fast and you will not be stuck forever. Being that optimistic can push you forward and keep doing what you like to do.
So how to handle stress?
There are numerous options you can try on your own.
1. Train yourself to be a people person.
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Being a college student opens you a lot of opportunities to improve your hard skills and your soft ones. It allows you to access a wide range of staff and faculty that can be great advisors for you and people to talk to. I have really missed this part. Pursuing an electrical engineering degree makes me sit alone a lot in front of my computer during sleepless nights working on projects and stuff. Focusing this way on projects will improve your technical skills. But it should not be your main concern. You should communicate with your professors and build a good network that provides you with a handful of opportunities.
2. Be fit and active.
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You must understand that you should always care for yourself physically and mentally. From my life experience, many difficulties have followed me from childhood into my adult life. And to overcome those difficulties, I kept myself fit and active, ran for miles, did mountain hiking, and did a lot of meditations. So whatever of those things works for you, maybe video calling a friend, watching a movie, and other stuff that can be a stress reliever for you.
3. Start a hobby.
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I finished my undergraduate studies and technically graduated but because of the pandemic, our student life was cut short and graduation ceremony was cancelled. Not having closure from that student phase makes it worse. It all happens so suddenly that the shift is too overwhelming. I find myself breaking down from time to time cause I feel so lost.
Graduating with a diploma was my main goal back when I was a student. Now having graduated, the future is way more uncertain than you think. I didn’t know which road to take and felt stuck. Creatively, I felt extremely disorganized to the point that I enrolled in more than one hundred courses on Coursera instead of focusing on only one path(say, web development.). Luckily, I have made my way to obtaining more than one hundred certifications in a span of three to four months or so. I have invested the little money I drove back to my early years from crypto day trading, which kept me away from the streets and furthered my education.
Now, I try to live each day with a positive mindset but when I submit a job application and don’t get a response is another stab at how I feel.
4. Take a break.
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For the sake of your mental health, you should occasionally take breaks, have some downtime and focus on other things.
When I was a college student, I was overwhelmed sometimes, leading to many breakdowns and panic attacks. Sometimes, my productivity level was too high, and I couldn't get anything done on other days.
While not everyone struggles with mental illness, everyone has mental health with unique challenges. One of the most effective ways to end mental health disgrace is by raising awareness that it is always ok to take a break or occasion for your mental wellbeing, especially for college students.
I think schools and colleges should offer courses and classes about mental health. It would benefit lots of students out there.
In my opinion, everyone should prioritize mental health over physical health. Of course, education is very important, but if you feel burned out, you need to act before it is too late to try!
5. Find an internship.
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This is a great way to fill your work experience gap. And you might be thinking, well, I need to be a student to work as an intern. However, it is always the case. Many companies don't require you to be a student to work on an internship. However, you need to consider that some internships are not paid or well paid, and you need to find what you might like.
In a tough job market, internships can be a way to build your soft skills, improve your experience and broaden your network with people that might lead to something more permanent.
6. Work on a research.
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A research assistant is someone who gets paid for researching specific topics on behalf of the university under the supervision of a principal investigator( the leader of that research project). Becoming a research assistant might be a great way to continue building the skills you are currently focusing on and developing new ideas. The primary duties of a research assistant are:
a. Write reviews of papers.
b. Collect, clean, and analyze data for a paper.
c. Write the bull-work of a paper for the PI.
If you want to go down this road, you can refer to this article on how to become a research assistant.
7. Self Employment.
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Focusing on building your own business is one of the most rewarding things you must consider for the long term. But, it would be best if you kept in mind that 8 out of 10 business goes out of business within the first two years or so as a study shows. Therefore, you have more than a 20% chance of succeeding, which is pretty remarkable. Fortunately, your entire life performance is based on your company's performance and not on someone else performance.
Personally, I prefer minding my own business, which is less risky than relying on someone else. But, you need to sacrifice your sweet time in favor of building your company, and you need to work hard on it to a certain extent and be dang resourceful. However, being exposed to a lot of information online, you can get easily distracted and paralyzed by analyzing way too much data out there, jumping from one article to another, leading to another.
Once you have gathered all this information, you need to take action, or it will become wasteful knowledge.
Now, you may be asking: well, what steps do I need to take to start my own business? This article explains how to start your business all the way from finding an idea to launching your product.
Now, the question is: Why am I not doing it myself? Well, I will keep you informed on my plan for the future in my upcoming articles. So, stay tuned.
8. Side gigs.
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Side gigs are becoming increasingly popular, and for a good reason. They provide a great way to make extra money and can even lead to a full-time career change.
When starting a side gig, there are a few things to remember. First, you need to find something that you're passionate about. What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? Once you've found your niche, the next step is building a client base. This can be done through online platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr or by networking with people in your field.
Another important thing to remember is that side gigs should complement your primary source of income, not replace it. This means that you must be mindful of how much time you dedicate to your side hustle. It's essential to strike a balance so that you can still meet your obligations at your day job.
But unfortunately, if you live in a restricted country, you might find it difficult or not an option at all to do such a side hustle. For instance, In Lebanon, all kinds of e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill, and Coinbase are prohibited... So it is not an option for me in my current place. And as you may be thinking, I am not making any penny writing articles on medium. Therefore, I am planning to move out to another country.
9. Working on personnal projects: Build a website.
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There are many personal projects you can work on to improve your skillset, but one that will always be beneficial is building a website. Websites are an essential part of almost every business and being able to build one from scratch shows potential employers that you have a wide range of skills. Even if you're not looking to get into web development professionally, having a website is a great way to showcase your work, whether it's writing, art, or photography. And if you do want to get into web development, building a website is the perfect way to start. You can learn HTML and CSS easily online or at your local community college, and once you have a basic understanding of those two languages, you can create a website that looks exactly the way you want it to.
10. Don't ever plan to go back to school.
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In today's competitive job market, it can be difficult for people to return to the workforce after a long time. The skills they acquired while in college might not be relevant in the current labor market, or they might not have the experience to show that they can do the job. Some academic institutions are starting to offer degrees in fields that focus on helping people re-enter the workforce, such as occupational therapy, counseling, and business. Talk to your career counselor or a career coach if you are thinking of returning to school but are unsure what path to take.
If you can't get a job, don't ever consider returning to your college to further your education. For example, if you got your diploma or bachelor's degree and failed to land your dream job, it doesn't mean you need to continue your master's degree cause you will face the same issue you faced after graduating. And That's one of the reasons why master's degree programs skyrocketed in recent years, And it has become so pricy even though the ROI may or may not be there. One of the things you can do instead is to take online courses to sharpen the skills that could help you during the hiring process.
Conclusion.
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So, in essence, you can choose many options to cope with stress and build your skills before and/or after graduating from college.
I think you should carry this message around to more schools and universities. It's ok to make mistakes when choosing your career path; more people need to know this! The belief that you should find and stick with one thing forever must go in that spam folder! So, don't be afraid to experiment. There's no need to have everything figured out right away. Try different things and see what feels right for you. The more experiences you have, the closer you'll find the right career path.
Lastly, you can follow me for more helpful articles to read.
Cover Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
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