Do you have it together? I don’t. Recently I have begun to realize that as far as my career goals and aspirations, I haven’t been doing all the things that I should be doing to achieve them. I’ve always felt that I had it all figured out because I knew what I wanted to do and was on the correct pathway to doing so. Despite this, in a field that is so competitive, I am now seeing that I should have been doing more and I could have been doing more. Now I’m panicking and thinking that I wasted so much time because I’m in my last year of college and this is my last shot. Because I’m the type of person that likes to plan things out, I’m tacitly freaking out because things have not gone according to the plans that I had set for myself. Before going into college, I knew for a while that journalism was what I wanted to pursue and I felt that in knowing that, I was one step ahead of my peers who at the time were clueless (some of which who still are). I told myself that I was going to do an internship every year of my college career so that by the time I left, I would have a job secured instead of idly wasting time waiting around for an opportunity. The thing is, plans don’t always work out perfectly and as I went through 2 and a half years of college I watched as my plans crumbled. I had yet to obtain an internship despite the fact that I was applying everywhere I could. Even then, I didn’t realize how behind I already was.
Now that I have an internship that I love because I am learning so much, reality is setting in more and more that I don’t have it all together, not even halfway. There’s so much more to learn and more importantly so much more for me to do that I just can’t believe I let myself reach this point. Just when I really started beating myself up over it, my best friend came to my house. When we got into the discussion of careers and where we’re going, I realized that her situation is much worse than my own. She is about to be in her last year of college as well and is majoring in animal science because her dreams of being a veterinarian met with the reality of how difficult a task that was. But what does someone do with a major in animal science? Now she’s at the point where she wants to change her career path all together and go to graduate school for communications. It’s definitely more than a little late in the game to be changing career paths and she will have a bachelor’s degree that is practically useless to her. Even with all her thoughts on what she might do, she still hasn’t made up her mind definitively and is more or less clueless. It’s crazy that there are actually still so many people like her who just don’t have a clue and no one to give them one either. At that point, I felt much better about myself and the mental panic attacks I was having. Although I might not have been doing all that I should have been doing, I am positive on what it is that I want to do. I realized for once in my life though, that maybe I’m not meant to have it all figured out and that things won’t always go the way that I plan them to go in my head but it’s ok. My best friend’s situation made me realize that although I don’t have it all together, I’m still a step ahead of all of the people like her of the college world who are just wasting away time and money to remain without a clue. Realizing that I don’t have it all figured out has been more beneficial to me than anything. My problem was that I had been too set on believing that I had it all figured out but that was mentally and my actions weren’t backing that up. They do say that step one to solving the problem is acknowledging the problem. Well now that I’ve acknowledged it, it has sparked the drive in me that I should have had from day one. I see so many people like my best friend spending all this time in college to be clueless and I’m determined that I will not fall into that category. This is the last chance for me and I don’t have time to let myself fall into that category. I don’t have it all together and I’m ok with that for now because these realizations are all steps added on my pathway to success. I just know that no matter what it takes, I’m not going to be just another one that is clueless in college.
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