Graduating College with No Plan: Life Update Part 1

With big life events, come lots of questions. Or, at least the same question over and over again.

This May, I graduated from college (woo hoo!). Pretty exciting stuff. And along with that, everyone wants to know: what am I doing next? or what am I doing now? or what’s my plan? or am I going back to school? or am I working? I hope to give you all some clarity regarding these questions, because you may also be curious about their answers.

I’ve been intending to do a sort of life update for a while now. As I’m writing this blog post in pieces, because I am still in the midst of this transition season myself, I’m torn with how to tell this story. So I don’t know how long it will be quite yet, or how much I’ll end up deleting to save you some time. I know I don’t owe anyone an explanation for any path I may be taking, but perhaps my processing of it can be beneficial to one of you.

I graduated college this May (2019) with a Bachelors degree in Psychology, and with a minor in American Sign Language.

When I started college, I didn’t have a plan for what’d I’d do after graduating or if I would pursue any other degree. I wasn’t going to college with a specific end goal or desire to continue higher education after the first four years; I didn’t start college with the thought, “I’m getting this degree so that I can get this job, or so that I can get another degree and then get this job”.

I was going to college because I wanted to. Because I love to learn and I find many things interesting. I didn’t do it like some people who pursue pre-med to eventually become a doctor, if that makes sense. Something to keep in mind as I continue my story.

Not long after being in college though, comes this…subtle pressure and/or expectation to really take your education super duper seriously and definitely plan on continuing it further after graduation- because, PSA, a Bachelors degree is basically worthless. Or at least only as valuable as a high school diploma. Because so many people are going to college and getting degrees now, they’re not special or as important as they used to be- supply and demand, babe.

So, you’ll find out later than you would have preferred, that if you want your education to be worth anything in the job market, you have to go for your Masters or higher. Cool. Plus, educators are really super into- you guessed it- education. Their entire life is about school, and studying, and research, and grants, and funding, and being a lifelong student. Which I am all for!

But, at this point in my life, I know there is so much more to be learned about life and the world than can be done in any classroom. I’ve been in school my entire life- and have loved almost every minute of it.

But, I need to live life outside the bubble of higher education, because in case you don’t already know, it’s a very small world.

I need real life experience. I need real skills beyond being able to write a fifteen page research paper on some obscure topic that no one actually wants to read. There’s a time and place for that, and a value in that. But that can only do so much for me in the real world.

Up until last year, I planned to go straight to graduate school during this Fall ’19 semester for a Masters degree in Counseling. Then one day, a thought came to me. And I think it was from the Lord, because I don’t think I would have thought of it myself (being how much I love school and thrive on schedules and due dates).

“Maybe I don’t want to go to grad school”.

Not a grand thought, or a drastic and crazy idea. But oh boy, that was one more decision I had to make and it stressed me out a bit. I had been trying to get all my ducks in a row for completing the necessary tasks required to even apply to graduate school. That was stressing me out big time. And if you know me at all, you know I don’t stress easily. So, then I was stressed about the fact that I was stressed. Anyway, in the middle of trying to check things off my graduate school to-do list, I had this thought.

I realized, man I’m tired. My mind needs a break. I need to get through this last year, and I feel like I can’t give it the necessary attention if I’m also trying to do super well in putting together/submitting grad school applications.

What if I didn’t go to grad school?

At this point, the thought of going to grad school stressed me out because that’s a thousand more things to do, at least two more years of time, more money to spend. A lot more investing in everything, to do something I wasn’t even sure I would enjoy or be good at, or be able to endure long-term (I’m highly empathetic- and realized I may not be able to carry everyone else’s emotions and burdens in addition to my own, if I were to do counseling).

And then the thought of not going stressed me out: BUT THEN WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? I am a planner. A list-maker. A organized person. I was not anticipating this.

I was highly conflicted.

So I prayed. Hard, and for weeks.

I cried a lot. Mostly minor meltdowns. Some in the middle of Sam’s Club while grocery shopping and trying to verbally process my thoughts in the company of my mama. #reallife

My overthinking self was overwhelmed with the thought of having to make a decision. Because, there’s these things in college called deadlines. And if I wanted to go to grad school this fall semester, I had to get my butt in gear.

But I was frozen. I didn’t know what to do.

This basically confirmed that I shouldn’t pursue anything specifically at this point, because I know that generally the “when in doubt, don’t” rule holds true in my life, and I make better decisions when I’m sure of them.

I still felt a weight, though. I kept praying. And the Holy Spirit spoke loudly and clearly to my heart. You can read about that here, but I basically received peace in knowing that whatever I chose to do, the Lord would bless as long as I honored Him in it. And like I said, I don’t think the thought to not go to grad school was my idea. Which is why it was hard, and which is why following through with it would be the best decision, for the time being.

All that to say I am not currently in school, and I am not going back for the foreseeable future.

People keep asking me if I’m going back, and I tell them, “Well not now. Someday I’m sure, because I love school. But I don’t know when.”

“Going back to school” is not what I am pursuing at this point. Some people can say they’re taking one year off then going back. I can’t say that, because I just don’t know where I will be or what I’ll be doing at that point. This year has already looked very much different than I would have expected at its start, so I can’t start to guess what next year will hold.

So, the Lord, I think, called me to a season of rest. He needed my attention, my time and energy, in a different way that I hadn’t been able to offer while in school.

I have sensed His stirring in my heart. A weird sort of restlessness. He’s doing some work that I can’t quite identify yet. I don’t know what He’s leading me to. But I know that to prepare for it, I need to learn to be still, to be quiet, to slow my life and to release my grip on what I think my life will look like and to trust Him without any plan of my own.

It’s very freeing on my end.

But this means that when people ask what I’m doing next or what kind of work I’m going to do, and I tell them, very casually and cooly, “I don’t know”, I get many looks of concern…

This post will be continued in a follow-up post within the next two weeks. This story, or at least the processing I’ve done while still in the midst of it and unable to have clear hindsight yet, has become only a small tangle of thoughts in my mind at this point. While I understand my motivations in all I’m doing, I’m sorting through how to incorporate those motivations into the next logical step: employment.

Stay tuned to find out more! 🙂