Welcome back to another edition of Ask Audrey, the advice column in which I give you my take on your most pressing personal problems. This week, we’ll be talking about something that weighs heavily on the minds of most, if not all, Penn students: choosing the right job.
This week’s question: “How does one navigate the fear of not finding the right job to do in life, especially when most of us come to college with so many fascinating interests?”
The perennial question of the University of Pennsylvania! When I started this column, I suspected this question would come up sooner or later. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a Penn student who would earnestly argue that this school doesn’t have some level of pre-professionalism. It’s a natural question, so I thank you for writing in with it.
You’re correct that many people come to college with a wide variety of fascinating interests. But I don’t think that’s something that ever has to go away. Even now, as a junior, there are still tons of topics that I want to learn more about (and am actively saving space for in my senior year schedule — looking at you, music department). Last semester, there were also several people in my history class who appeared to be above the age of 70 but were still actively pursuing a topic that engaged them. The fact that you have to choose a job doesn’t mean that you ever have to abandon other interests entirely. Applying that mentality can take some of the pressure off from finding one singular perfect fit of a job which, in all likelihood, does not exist.
I would also note that very few people, particularly in this day and age, have one job that they stick to for their whole lives. This is something I’ve heard at many College Alumni Mentoring Series dinners, usually accompanied by a smirk from the person saying it, as though they know Penn students fueled by pre-professional anxiety won’t listen. Anxiety around finding the right job is natural, and can hopefully be assuaged with the knowledge that you will have the opportunity to segue or start over entirely if you wish. There is always some form of exit route. A helpful way to figure out if the jobs that seem interesting are what you imagine is by pursuing some form of internship to test them out on a temporary basis. If the field isn’t what you’d hoped it would be, onto the next great adventure. Aren’t we lucky to be able to do something as low-stakes as that?
Something I hear a lot of at Penn is that people feel anxious about not knowing what job to choose, so they decide to follow a set path that they know will make them a lot of money quickly (read: consulting, finance, etc.). There are absolutely valid reasons to do this, particularly if you have loans or are financially supporting loved ones. However, I do want to emphasize that this is not the only path. If you have the opportunity to treat them as such, your early 20s when you first graduate college should be a period of continued exploration. In a time when you might not have children to feed or elderly parents to care for, you should be flexible in your approach to the professional world. The fear you’re feeling is real, but it shouldn’t prohibit you from exploring your passions, especially when you’re young.
Thank you for writing in. I’ve been thinking about fear a lot lately. I’m coming to the conclusion that fear is never a good enough reason to hold yourself back. If fear is the only reason you’re not pursuing something, take the leap and pursue it anyway. I’ll tell myself that, too.
Oh, and one more thing — I think the Penn English department might take away the “Penn English” sticker on my wall if I didn’t point you to the novel, “The Bell Jar,” by Sylvia Plath. The passage in that book about fig trees might resonate with you.
If you’re interested in submitting anonymously to Ask Audrey, feel free to do so here. All advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
AUDREY LEVENSON is a College junior studying political science and English from Pelham, NY. Her email is audklev@sas.upenn.edu.
