Don't sweat 'the plan'

What do you do with a B.A. in English? What is my life going to be? sings Princeton, a puppet endowed with human-like characteristics and a desire to discover his purpose in life, at the beginning of the musical Avenue Q. I’m two semesters away from a B.S. in Economics, but my sentiments regarding my education and future are nonetheless identical to those of my fictional counterpart.

As a first-year student who could barely navigate from Gross Hall to Bridges House, let alone confidently say “I’m going to major in…” to classmates, I always looked to my senior friends for inspiration. There was the guy admitted to medical school, the girl with an offer from a boutique investment bank, the guy who was going to teach middle school social studies and many, many more. Each of them told me their postgraduate plans with such conviction that it seemed the paths before them had been inevitable, the result of four years of hard work and careful strategizing. Even then, before I had taken a single course in the subject that would become my major, I aspired to be like them: utterly sure of where life would take me next. Even during my sophomore year as I considered countless combinations of majors, minors and certificates, I reassured myself that not knowing my life’s purpose was totally okay; it would reveal itself to me by the time I started looking for a job.

Boy was I wrong.

Now, with my final year of college right around the corner – I will not admit to actually being a senior until my last first day of classes begins – I can’t say I’ve had any eureka moments. Some of the job titles that appear on Duke CareerConnections appear interesting, but none truly thrill me. I’m not unduly afraid of the so-called real world, with its 50-hour workweeks, suburban office parks and 11 p.m. bedtimes, but I do envy the confidence my older friends had in their career decisions.

Perhaps I just saw in them what I wanted to see, though. After all, according to Forbes, the average worker spends only four and a half years at any given job, a number that is even lower for recent graduates. I’ve witnessed people turn jobs that were supposed to sustain them for a gap year before medical school into fully-fledged careers and people dead-set on never reading another textbook in their lives deciding to obtain graduate degrees. Some got sick of 100-hour weeks trapped in front of Excel spreadsheets, and others grew tired of cold calling small business owners. Even some of the seniors I once admired as a freshman who seemed so put-together changed jobs for one reason or another. In short, I’ve been deluding myself by thinking a few years of a liberal arts education would somehow magically illuminate the path to professional fulfillment. It won’t, and it shouldn’t.

What does any of this have to do with college, though? In my opinion, everything. All too often, we look to the people who claim to know exactly what their college major, graduate school program and eventual career will be and berate ourselves for not being more like them, laser-focused on a well-defined goal. In reality, however, even the most confidently made plans change or disappear completely. That’s okay, as is not knowing what we will be doing in five months, let alone five years. To spend undue amounts of time worrying about not having an incredibly specific plan or, even worse, setting goals that hold no personal significance, is to horribly misuse our time here at Duke.

Thus, I encourage upperclassmen, myself included, to take a step back from the corporate recruiting and graduate school admissions processes beginning soon and remember that our first job or professional degree does not define our career trajectories forever; medical students become journalists, corporate lawyers become history teachers and sometimes even investment bankers become consultants. Too often I feel like some far-off human resources officer is searching for the perfect candidate for the perfect job. That candidate is me, I convince myself, and by agonizing over my post-graduation plans just a little bit more I’ll be able to find and secure that dream job. In reality, however, there are only good, maybe even great, jobs, and I’m hoping to at least be offered one of those.

Similarly, my advice to underclassmen is to explore Duke’s many wonderful offerings inside and out of the classroom and not feel obligated to keep up with the Joneses by constructing an elaborate four-year plan consisting of two majors, a minor and a set of perfectly complementary extracurricular activities. Your interests will change between now and graduation, so be willing and able to revise your academic and personal goals accordingly. Your future is not set in stone based on the blueprint you draft during your first few months here, or even your entire time in the Gothic Wonderland. To think it is would be to deprive yourself of four fantastic years of discovery and learning.