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Posted March 18, 2015

Postgrad Careers: What if you don't have plans?

So far, your life has consisted of fairly simple choices. Got good A-levels, did a degree. Didn’t know what to do after a degree, did a masters. Didn’t know what to do after a masters, did a PhD . Didn’t know what to do after a PhD…..ah. When you’ve gone as far in your field of study as you are able to go and you still do not know what to do, everything can seem a little terrifying. Surely after a decade you should have worked out what exactly it was that you wanted to do, right?

Well, it would certainly make life a lot easier, but there is definitely nothing wrong with not knowing.

As all the ‘90s kids will be able to tell you, the wisest advice on this subject comes from a strange number 1 single released in 1999 called ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’. Based on a potential commencement address by a Chicago Tribune columnist that went viral before viral was even a thing, it advised that ‘The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives/Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t’. This is the approach to take. Not knowing what you want to do is exactly an exciting state to be in. If you do not know what you want to do, it means that potentially you could do anything. This is especially true in a world of the ‘portfolio career’, where people do many jobs over the course of their lives in many different areas. Making a choice now and taking a temporary job does not mean preventing yourself from taking on a different, dream job in the future.

Some examples from some notable celebrities in case my advice is not sufficient. Did you know that a multi-Booker Prize winning author is the man responsible for the phrase ‘naughty but nice’? Working as a copywriter to tide himself over whilst writing what became ‘Midnight’s Children’, Salman Rushdie worked as a copywriter, where a succinct style completely removed from his often lengthy books was required. And taking an even more left turn career-wise, one casting agent chose the carpenter working on the movie to become one of its stars when she couldn’t find an adequate actor. However, this was clearly an unsuccessful cast; after all, who has heard of Harrison Ford since he got that acting job on a little-known film called ‘Star Wars’…

The arts are a particular place where these remarkable career changes happen, but people all over the world end up doing things they never dreamed of doing simply because they didn’t know what they wanted to do, and this is only going to get more frequent. Not that this process has to be entirely by chance. Finding yourself cast adrift from education, take some time to take stock of yourself. Write a list of the skills you have, what you like doing and what you do well, and then look for jobs based on this. Think of what you want to be doing in your dreams, and take another job that gives you time to think about how to make that dream happen.

As a student, you spent your time working on increasingly specific projects. Now that you’ve graduated, you have to get out of that mindset and cast your net as far as it can go, and see what you end up doing. If it doesn't work out the first time, try again. The results may surprise you, and don't forget: if your job doesn't end up relating to your degree at all, that's okay too!

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1 comment

Anna July 1, 2016, 9:18 p.m.

Beautiful post! I'm currently 22, right out of university, and have no clue or plans about the future. Thanks for some inspiring thoughts!

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