For the past 16 years of his life, Matt Ayers has spent about
six hours a day at school and several more doing homework and other
school-related business.
But as graduation day nears, Ayers, a third-year economics
student, will experience alternating moods of anxiety and
excitement ““ like most seniors whose routine school days will
be forever replaced by plans to enter the workforce or specialize
in a specific field.
The psychological state of seniors as they prepare to graduate
is very much dependent on the student’s post-graduation
plans, or lack thereof, said Connie Hammen, the director of the
UCLA Clinical Psychology Training Program.
Hammen, whose expertise is anxiety and depression in humans,
said she has spoken to seniors who have expressed feelings ranging
from anxiety, if the student has no clear plans, to feelings of
enthusiasm if they have received the job they always wanted or will
be attending the graduate school of their choice.
For Ayers, Hammen’s predictions hold true as his plans
have some direction but are not definite.
He has been offered a job at Smith Barney, a global stock
brokerage and investment banking company, and has interviewed with
Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, retail broker and credit card
company, but is not sure which one he will take.
“(I’m feeling) nervous, anxious, a little scared,
but at the same time excited with a sense of accomplishment,”
Ayers said, whose bag of mixed emotions are shared by others who
are graduating.
Ayers cited “uncertainty” as the main cause of his
emotions.
“It takes discipline to make it to graduation or even to a
top university, and when you are about to graduate without any
prior knowledge of exactly where you are going to end up or if that
job will fulfill what you have been working toward since high
school ““ it’s a scary thing,” Ayers said.
Similar to Ayers, AJ Secrist, a fourth-year business economics
and accounting student, plans to enter the workforce immediately
upon graduation to work for Goldman Sachs, an investment banking
company.
Secrist said he feels thrilled, and not at all nervous, about
leaving UCLA.
“After having a great time in college, I’m ready to
move on and see what else is out there,” Secrist said.
There exists uncertainty when seniors will have to relocate,
going to places that are sometimes unfamiliar and also distant from
friends and family.
Jeremy Jacquot, a fourth-year marine biology student who will
attend dental school at UC San Francisco, said though he is not
worried about living in the Bay Area, he has feelings of anxiety
stemming from the greater distance separating him from his
family.
“I’ll be living farther away from my parents, who
currently reside in Orange County, which will undoubtedly result in
bouts of homesickness,” he said.
Though some students will need to face the reality of leaving
and the change that accompanies it, others will opt to stay close
to what they’ve enjoyed for the past four years.
Like Jacquot, fourth-year neuroscience student Beata Pezeshki
also has plans to attend dental school, but her classes will still
be within the same zip code. In fact, they will be on the same
campus.
Pezeshki will continue her education at the UCLA School of
Dentistry, which, upon her graduation from dental school, will mark
her 20th year of schooling in L.A. County.
Though the thought of harder classes makes Pezeshki nervous, she
said she still looks forward to continuing her higher
education.
“As for staying in L.A., … it does add less excitement
for me because of the lack of change, but accepting change is
difficult for me, so I would rather stay in L.A. where my family
and many of my friends are,” she said.
Whatever the emotion, Hammen says the issue of what to do after
graduating is clearly something students will be thinking about as
graduation nears.
But for those students who do not have finalized post-graduation
plans and are now trying to find answers in haste, Hammen warns
against putting a lot of self-induced pressure because the
solutions will not come as easily.
“I’m confident those students (who do not have plans
now) will figure it out eventually,” Hammen said.