The dreaded question: “what are you going to do after University?”

The question “What are you going to do after university?” is one I have been trying to escape for years. I have been asked about it and consequently thought about it, so many times that I can no longer distinguish the meaning and motive behind it. It has carved a hollow place in the back of my mind and squats there, refusing to vacate. It waits to resurface at family dinners, in polite small talk with strangers and in fleeting conversations with friends.  

I vividly remember the first time the question was put to me: it was in my grandparent’s lounge. A room clad in a bright yellow wallpaper teeming with colourful exotic birds, all of which seemed to be eavesdropping on the conversation. I sat on the stiff sofa across from my grandmother, whom I hadn’t seen in four years. I was sitting so straight it felt as though a thin wire had been threaded down my spine and someone above me was pulling it taut. My grandmother didn’t like it when people slouched. In her hand was a fancy floral teacup from a set she’d had for as long as I had been visiting her. She asked the question in her naturally shrewd way. I wondered at first whether the question was meant for my mother, despite her having graduated more than thirty years ago. When I realised it wasn’t, I searched for and strung together words and answered her question truthfully: “I have no idea”. I remember this moment so clearly because it happened the summer before I had even started university.   

I spent my formative years dreaming of becoming an Olympic sprinter. In primary school, I boasted to the boys in my class that one day they would see me on TV, a gold medal gleaming between my teeth. I never envisioned myself quitting athletics at sixteen and embarking on an academic journey where, upon completion, no gold medal is awarded (nor the clear prospect of a job). Now, at twenty, I spend much of my time ‘doom-scrolling’ through LinkedIn, struggling to understand how the people in my classes have more internships than I have friends. 

From that moment on, I paid little attention whenever the question arose. It fell comfortably into the category of questions that concern a faraway time, such as “How many kids do you want?” or “What age would you like to retire?”. It was something I could no doubt entrust my future self to figure out. Although now I’ve found out that she can’t be trusted at all. In response to the question, I would laugh a small laugh and tell whoever asked it that I’d have to get back to them. The frequency of such a question made me wonder why, collectively, we are all so insistent on the future and never satisfied with what’s going on in the present. 

As might be expected, my parents are the ones who ask the question most often, followed by any family we’re forced to get together with whenever a holiday rolls around. Yet even if all of these people were to disappear, the question would still find a way to reach me. Whenever I get blood tests, doctors ask me about my future as I’m on the verge of fainting. My driving instructor once had to grab the wheel to stop me from hitting a parked car when he casually dropped the question into our conversation. The lady waxing my armpits tried to discern my answer in between yelps. A few nights ago, as I was on the cusp of falling asleep,  my boyfriend whispered, “You know you’re going to have to get a job someday.” I thought about suffocating him with a pillow then and spending the rest of my life in jail. That way at least, I would have my future planned out for me.

Now that I’ve reached the final year of my degree, I despair whenever the question arises. At night it keeps me awake, lurking beneath the duvet, waiting for the moment I turn off the lights so it can wrap its suffocating arms around me.  Perhaps I’m having some sort of existential crisis – like Hamlet or Raskolnikov – only I don’t think I am, because my mother says those aren’t real. She says I’m just too proud and too lazy. Too lazy to search for opportunities, and too proud to admit that my contempt towards a 9-to-5 job exposes my naivety and ignorance. There are times when I wish I had fought harder when my father told me to do a degree that would guarantee me a job – or, more accurately, one that would make me a lot of money. I’ve come to realise that no degree guarantees you a job or a future. That it takes work, determination, and passion – qualities difficult to employ when you’re stuck in something you don’t particularly enjoy. I weigh up the benefits of using my degree and earning the money my father talked of, compared to searching for something more fulfilling, something I might actually like. The real choice it seems I have is between money and happiness. Why it’s such a rarity that the two ever meet remains to me, a mystery. 

In De Profundis, Oscar Wilde writes – “A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment.” I try to remind myself that not knowing is okay. Not knowing, perhaps never knowing, means I’ll get a chance to try everything. That uncertainty can also mean freedom. While this quote, paired often with Billy Joel’s ‘Vienna’, provides a blanket of comfort, there are times when it slips from my shoulders and I feel the chill of uncertainty yet again. Now, when I’m asked the question, “What are you going to do after university?” I still string the same few words together and repeat the answer I gave my grandmother three years ago. “I have no idea”. But this time I add, with some certainty, “I’m going to get a cat”. 

Words by Beatrice Aherne