How To Figure Out What To Do After University
At various phases of our lives we ask ourselves the question: “What should I do next?”
This could be deciding what to do after high school, what to do after university, or maybe changing career paths. For me, my recent experience with this burning question was trying to decide what to do with my life after university. While at that stage in my life, I was more confused than ever. I didn’t know it at the time, but God was really guiding me and I can now say that I couldn’t be happier with my decision to pursue a Bioscience PhD, specifically researching host-pathogen interaction. Reflecting on how I navigated this transition I came up with 3 lessons that I feel if consciously applied to your life will help you answer that dreaded question.
Before laying out the three lessons, I will share some background on my academic journey.
My Academic Journey Thus Far
Growing up, I always had an interest in science. Throughout elementary school science class was my favourite. And so, like any child with any interest in science my default career goal was to become a medical doctor. So that’s what I worked towards.
Fast forward to my junior year in high school, I was trying to apply to do medicine in the US or UK. For the US, you need an undergraduate degree first, and then you apply for medicine at the graduate level. But for the UK, you can go into medical school straight from high school and one of the requirements is a test called the UKCAT. But, I went to High School in Beijing, China, so when I was looking into taking the test, I could not find any test centres in China (while writing this post, I found out that there are now test centres in China). Since I could not take the UKCAT, I decided to apply for biology related undergraduate courses in the UK and the US and then apply for medicine at the graduate level.
I applied to several schools in the US and UK, but also a school in China. The university I applied to in China, and ended up going to, was built as a partnership between Xi’an Jiaotong University in China and the University of Liverpool in the UK. At that school you have the option of doing half of your degree in the campus in China and the other half at the University of Liverpool. It is normally a 4-year degree, but since I took the SAT test, SAT subject tests and AP tests I was able to skip the foundation year. Which meant that I would study Biological Sciences for 1 year in China and Genetics for 2 years in the UK. Going into this program I was still set on my childhood dream of becoming a medical doctor. However, by my second year at university I began to have second thoughts and my post-undergraduate plans of going to medical school was no longer set in stone.
This is where lesson 1 comes in.
[Lesson 1] Try New Things
The first lesson I learnt is the importance of trying new things. Take classes outside your degree specifications. Take part in extracurricular activities. Take online classes. Attend seminars and workshops. Apply for a summer internship. Develop a new hobby. There are a multitude of ways to get a taste of new topics that could potentially lead you to identifying a career path you will enjoy.
When I was transferring to the Liverpool campus to study Genetics, we had to select some elective classes to take. After going through the options, the two classes that caught my eye were ‘Virology’ and ‘The Immune System in Health and Disease’. With my interest in medicine, the latter course seemed like a clear choice because it covered a much broader range of human diseases. However, I had never learn’t anything about viruses and I was intrigued. After much internal deliberation, I decided to go for the Virology module. Till this day I’m not sure why I chose Virology. All I can say is that I had a gut feeling about it and I have heard people say to always go with your gut. And oh am I happy I made that choice.
[Lesson 2] Speak with people about the things you try.
Once you have taken advantage of any available opportunities to try something new, you should instinctively have a sense of which one(s) you enjoy. But if you need a guide on how to gauge which topics or activities you are particularly interested in, I strongly suggest talking to people about it. And while discussing with others, pay attention to how enthusiastic and excited you get about the topic or activity. You could score the various items on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being eliciting no excitement at all and 10 being bursting with excitement.
…while discussing with others, pay attention to how enthusiastic and excited you get about the topic or activity.
While taking that Virology module in my second year of university, I found that whenever I spoke to anyone about a recent lecture I attended I got really passionate about the topic. I was incredibly fascinated by how such small and simple particles could infect people, animals and plants, evade the immune response and have such devastating consequences. I already knew I enjoyed the lectures but speaking to other people about it and being aware of the excitement I felt further solidified my new found interest in viruses. I even took a more advanced Virology course in my third year that I also thoroughly enjoyed and it led me to developing a fascination wit infectious disease and the battle between human immune system and pathogens.
[Lesson 3] Just Pick One
If you are lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you see it) you might identify multiple things that you really enjoy and get passionate talking about. But then the big question arises: “How do I decide which one to go for?”
Even with this newfound interest in infectious disease I still enjoyed Human Genetics which was the main focus of my degree. As a result, while looking into graduate programs I was looking into infectious disease programs as well as human genetics programs. However, I soon found that trying to create strong application for two rather different specialties was not a good choice for me, but I was struggling to choose between them.
An answer to this dilemma came to me while listening to The GaryVee Audio Experience podcast as I was taking a walk to the grocery store.
The answer is very simple: JUST PICK ONE! Make a decision and go ALL IN on that decision. You literally have no way of knowing where an alternative decision would have led you. Hence, it is better to make a decision now than to be paralysed by indecision.
My favourite quote that accurately depicts the challenge and danger of indecision is from Sylvia Plath’s only novel, The Bell Jar.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
When you are paralysed by indecision you might end up losing out on everything.
If you need to flip a coin to help you make a decision, do it. In fact, I have heard that in that split second before the coin lands on heads or tail you come to the realisation that there is an option you prefer. Just make sure your decision is based on what makes YOU feel good and not based on other people’s expectations of you. Go with your gut, give it 100% effort and never look back. And when I say never look back, it doesn’t mean that you can’t change course and try something new. Instead, it just means that you should not dwell on every decision and alternate decision. Once you’ve made you choice, own it. Even if it turns out as a loss, don’t dwell on it, don’t complain about it, just keep moving forward.
So from this approach to decision making, I put all my eggs in the infectious disease basket. This allowed me to spend a lot more time developing my personal statement since I didn’t have to divide my attention across varying fields.
I applied to multiple PhD programs, I was invited to a few interviews and I ended up in a lab researching the interplay between the human innate immune system and a fungal pathogen called Cryptococcus neoformans.
In conclusion:
1. You need to try different things. This will help you discover the topics or activities that you enjoy which could potentially turn into a career path. There are a variety of resources you can take advantage of to help you get a taste of new fields.
2. If needed, you can measure how much you enjoy something by the level of excitement you feel when you speak to other people about that topic.
3. Lastly, if you are struggling to pick between multiple paths, you just have to PICK ONE. You have no way of knowing where an alternative path would lead, so just make a decision (flip a coin of needed) and go all in. Make a decision based on how YOU feel right now and not based on people’s expectations of you.
I really hope you took something valuable away from this post and will apply it to your own situation. I believe that if you consciously apply these tips, it will relieve a lot of the stress that comes with transitional life stages.
