2022 grads discuss graduation anxiety

When alumna Sunnie Wang reflects on her undergraduate journey, she finds that clichés ring more true as she gets older. Wang, a 2022 graduate who majored in law, history and culture, occupied herself with an internship and job every semester of college because she felt swept up in the hustling current of her peers’ ambitions, she said. 

Wang said evaluating the worth of a job, organization or decision yourself holds a multitude of possibilities, but it must be an individual decision made by “trust[ing] your gut.” Her advice to current students is to live in the moment and discern early on what’s fundamentally important to them as individuals. 

“None of [the jobs and internships] mean anything, unless you actually gain anything from it … I would sit down and be like, ‘What did I even do?’” Wang said. “What you’re putting your energy into is worth it can mean a myriad of things — worth it in the moment or worth it in the long run — that’s up for you to decide.”

Looking back, 2022 graduate Katie O’Hara said college life is like a “self-contained fire.” College is a unique environment where you have your work in front of you and your friends all around you, O’Hara said, and you are living in a “little world that kind of fits together perfectly.” In thinking about the future, O’Hara, who majored in psychology, said she felt nervous but ultimately excited about her postgraduate life.

Advice which O’Hara said she hopes undergraduates will heed is to take advantage of opportunities, avidly participate in class, attend office hours more often and reach out to more people. 

“Do it now and do it earlier, and just put yourself out there and reach out to people,” O’Hara said. “I wish I asked more questions and went to more office hours because I was always scared of seeming like I didn’t know what was going on, or like I didn’t have friends, or like I didn’t know the answer. And I realized, no one did.”

O’Hara said being afraid of the way in which one is perceived by others will serve as an inhibition from reaching one’s full potential in college.

“Just put yourself out there and reach out to people, and don’t be scared of seeming like you are putting in more or like you’re chasing something or someone,” O’Hara said. “Everyone already feels like that at first … you kind of fake it till you make it.” 

Mason Burns, a 2022 graduate who majored in accounting, said graduating and being a first-generation professional in his family has left him with uncertainties and unanswered questions about the transition from being a student to entering the workforce. Finding the resources and mentors necessary to assimilate into the workplace is difficult to navigate, Burns said, but can be found through connecting to others in similar situations.

“I’ve been scared to be able to ask anyone in my family questions about certain things about the workplace … [such as] what is proper workplace etiquette, how do you negotiate your salary, how do you set work-life balance,” Burns said. “I’ve just been trying to find other first-generation white collar kids … who I’m comfortable with to ask these questions.”

Taking a gap year is a decision that shouldn’t be influenced by one’s peers or parents, but rather by seeing how it fits into your life plans, Burns said, but there’s no blanket solution. In his own deliberations about attending law school, Burns concluded that a gap year after college will not make a significant difference to him in the long run. 

 “I think at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you practice law for 40 years, 39 years, 38 years. When you’re 65, it’s not gonna matter how long you practiced law,’’ Burns said. 

It’s best to research, Burns said, and formulate your own opinion about taking a gap year. He contended that he disagreed with the “conventional wisdom” that mandated everyone to take a gap year to figure themselves out.

“Just do what’s best for you,” Burns said. “If you feel like you want some real world experience … and you want to get some money, then take a gap year, but if you feel like you can get into a good school and go straight through, then that’s also a really good thing to do.”

O’Hara is considering taking a gap year because, having lived at home for a lot of her undergraduate time on account of the pandemic, she said she wants more time to explore and figure out her goals and desires. Going to graduate school is a clear next step and can be comforting, O’Hara said, but she wants to take the time to explore her options. 

“The way that I look at it is, after you graduate college, everything you’re doing is for you. You’re just competing against yourself, you’re not competing against people in your class,” O’Hara said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about … [whether] I want to go right back into school right now … or what do I want, and I’m realizing just by asking those questions, I feel like I need to take time and figure it out.”

Anna Rhee, a rising senior majoring in law, history and culture with one semester of college left, said she’ll use her final time at USC as an unorthodox gap year. A sum of her anxiety, Rhee said, stems from finding a job because of the stereotypes surrounding the difficulty of graduating with a degree in humanities. Knowing that more technical majors, such as engineering or business, are more likely to have definite, “pipeline” jobs after college, Rhee said, has given her anxiety about joining the workforce.

“I’m looking forward to making some real money and just getting out there and getting real world experience,” Rhee said. “Internships and jobs during college helped a lot to shape what I wanted to do but actually getting out there, being paid for my work and being able to give back to my parents in that way will be pretty cool.”