Dear Harlan: I’ve been feeling really anxious about graduating soon because I have no idea what I want to do after college! I chose a major that I felt would get me a decent paying job out of college and stuck with it for the entirety of my college career for the sole purposes of graduating on time and keeping my financial aid. I don’t even feel that interested in using the degree I chose, but I feel like I have to use it. On top of that, I don’t have any other interests that I could work from to try to find a new career path that would better suit me. Overall, I’m incredibly lost. Any advice?
— Lost
Dear Lost: Stop thinking. Start doing. Don’t think in terms of the rest of your life. Forget a career. Think in terms of the next 12 to 24 months. Where in the world do you want to live? What kind of work do you want to do? What kind of people do you want to surround yourself with? What do you want to experience? There are no wrong answers. Got it? NO WRONG ANSWERS. You need to start experiencing the world to get a taste of what you want and don’t want. Avoid getting bogged down by thinking too big. Think in small chunks of time. The smaller chunks will free you up to find answers. While searching for answers, surround yourself with people who are great at going after what they want. Use your school’s career center to help you identify and meet these people. Get a part-time job that puts you in a place where you are around fascinating people. Also check out micro-internships. These are short-term jobs that give you a taste of what it’s like to work in different careers with different people. You can use Parker Dewey’s platform to get started: www
.parkerdewey.com. Take the next four years, and experience working in different places with different people and see what feels right. Experiencing life will give you answers.
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