Perspective
Graduation is less than 50 days away, and I have no plans. For more than 15 years, my life has been defined by a routine of classrooms, deadlines and outlined expectations set by friends, family and professors. There has always been a next step – complete this assignment, pass the next exam, graduate high school, choose a college.
Even when I felt uncertain, there was a path built and I always had something to follow.
Now, in the distance, I’m beginning to see a ‘road closed’ sign.
The idea can be easy to ignore as there are a handful of responsibilities and celebrations that come before graduation, but as it gets closer, it’s becoming harder to avoid. The structured path is coming to a close and what’s next is far less defined.
The expectation that college students need to have their lives mapped out after graduation is unrealistic and creates pressure. It also leaves students feeling discouraged before they have even begun their post-grad life.
Some of my peers might have an idea on what they’ll pursue after college, or a job sorted out or they are already in the workforce. In an HR Drive survey conducted among 1,700 Americans with an undergraduate degree, half of the people surveyed said their major didn’t prepare them for the job market, 29% wish they picked a different major and 18% regretted the university they attended.
If you’re in the same boat as I am, with nothing in sight, then that’s okay, we don’t need to have it all figured out. While some of those numbers reflect regret, it also highlights the uncertainty that comes with graduation and shows the reality of how our paths change.
There is no timeline after graduation. In a Cengage national report, 48% of students graduating in the United States in 2024 and 2025 felt unprepared to apply for specific positions in their field. The job market is also a direct reflection of this hesitation. As of Dec. 2025, 42% of recent college graduates were underemployed, signifying they have a job that does not require a degree. While this isn’t a negative thing, it emphasizes that although we’ll gain our bachelor’s degrees, it does not mean the path moving forward is linear. In fact, Grand Canyon University conducted a survey and found that 56% of people say they’ve experienced a quarter life crisis as a young adult entering the workforce. This highlights how common this uncertainty is among post-grads and reinforced that these overwhelming feelings are part of the journey.
It’s been drilled in our heads that if we succeed in academics, then everything will fall into place. Yet these studies show that’s not always the case. There’s an unspoken expectation that we need to have it all figured out by the time we walk across the stage, but there’s no guarantee of what comes after graduation.
Erin Smith, a Dec. 2025 graduate from the university, has been working as an interim press secretary since November after receiving her bachelor of arts in communications. While her job ends later this month, Smith has some ideas about her future but has not taken any action toward that career.
“I think the shift from being in school and starting my current position before I graduated and then transitioning to just doing the job was a lot,” said Smith. “I really want to take the proper time to focus on what I want to do and not just jump into the first thing that was offered.”
As a communications major, Smith said there’s a lot of freedom, but this can become overwhelming as there are several areas of work to navigate to see if it’s a good fit. Though she had a plan for herself, Smith said she feels lost at the moment and is trying to accept that what she had in mind might not be for her.
“I think the pressure comes from just the way society works and the idea that you live to work,” said Smith. “Also, I think students constrain themselves to certain paths early and they think that is the only option for them instead of being forced to try different things.”
This pressure that Smith describes is not unique but instead represents the broader mindset of thousands of college graduates. Our lives are transitioned from a world full of guidance, into one that feels like a crowded room with no direction in which way to turn.
Though it’s become a normalized feeling, it doesn’t have to be one that instills fear. We can embrace our freedom, allow ourselves to explore and create our own expectations. We might not know what’s next, but we are no longer defined to the academic expectations of success. That ‘road closed’ sign does not represent the end, but instead a world full of new beginnings.
