How does your major affect your postgrad plans?

Coming into college I knew I wanted to be a biology major, as a hundred or so other people thought and eventually abandoned the sciences for other intellectual pursuits I continued to enjoy and be fascinated by what biology and understanding of our body, cells and humans can do. Yet, with graduation approaching and the end of my undergraduate learning, I believe many people are at a crossroads. Yes, we put in four years of work towards taking classes for our major, focusing on specific classes for specialization where our interests lay, and fieldwork/research/internships further studies in our major but we’ve also done more outside of our major. Whether that’s a job to fund our education, internship, shadowing opportunity, fieldwork, minor/emphasis courses, liberal arts “other” course not under our major and involvement in the community that may interest us just as much as our major did in the beginning.

memes major

Sometimes four years of hard hitting academics within our major and focuses tires us out when graduation approaches. Not many individuals choose to pursue continued education immediately after undergrad, the ones who do have a clear path they are pursuing. And its taken me awhile and my own personal experience, it can be okay to not know what we want to do post-undergrad or doing work that is not directly related to our major, not directly related to our $240,000+ education that we received. It’s okay to be uncertain, to do something new, to do something that pays the bill, to travel and fulfill some dreams and all will hopefully well in the future.

 

Friends & Spaces

Friendship is one thing, and living with a friend is something else. It’s often when you live with someone you learn more about them than you did before, a lot more and sometimes that can put a strain on your relationship. You see them a lot more voluntarily making plans and involuntarily due to the nearness of your living situations. Or you could see someone a lot less, take it for granted you would hang out and see each other a lot even if its in passing getting ready in the morning or going to bed at night. But one thing’s for sure, proximity to friends influence your relationships with them.

5 Months Left

This winter break has been so nice because its bee just that: a break. A break from lectures, homework, friends, my house in Tacoma, poorly made meals (by myself) and everything. But its kinda scary that with only one semester left: aka 5 months. That deadline is coming up so fast that it makes me not look at this break like a break anymore.

Its a time with no distractions to figure out what I’m doing next semester. For some they’ve already figured out they want to attend grad school- they’ve applied and they’ve heard back and are deciding or waiting to hear back, they want to attend a postgrad fellowship program- they’re waiting to hear back. Basically most people on those paths know when they’re making a decision about next year or they already have. Me, I could’ve been on the second path but basically I’m looking for a career and jobs post-undergrad.

The first semester was kinda a weird time because I couldn’t apply to jobs that had immediate openings or that starting in Jan 2017 because I would still be a student, but I still looked at a lot of companies and organizations just to get a feel about what I want to apply to, how and when to do so. Upon thinking about what my major is and what I want to do I realize its just like applying for college again but way more scary. Every company is different, every location is different and at this point they aren’t necessarily catering to graduates but real people and I’m competing with other real people for these jobs. I can’t take a nonchalant approach to applying for jobs as I did for college because I need them more than they need me. So now my break has turned into future planning because getting a job is the first step. Then there’s finding somewhere to live, feeding myself, getting transportation and then actually moving there.