5 Stages of Losing Your Student Identity
Or who are you after graduation?
Graduation is a happy event for everyone. Your family. Your friends. Everyone is tearing up because of you.
You are an adult now. Congratulations.
We become students when we turn 6–7 years old. Everyone has a different journey. If you’ve chosen a higher education path, you’ll graduate just in time for your quarter-life crisis.
That means you can spend about 20 years being a student.
With 20 years of experience, you can become an expert at anything. You always know what to say when people ask you about your studies. You have a student card for public transport and other discounts. Most of your friends are also students. You might live in a dorm and occasionally go to parties.
You know all the hacks to study better. You figured everything out.
Half of your life circles around you being a student. Till you graduate.
Then what? Is it supposed to just go away?
I’m writing this article because for the longest time after graduation I couldn’t understand why I felt so sad. I felt an emptiness inside. It was the part of my identity that was no longer there.
I was not a student anymore. I was an unemployed adult who had no idea what to do with her life.
We all know what comes after we lose something that was important to us, don’t we?
Here are five stages of grief after losing your student’s identity:
Denial and Isolation
Right after graduation, you still have your student card that hasn’t expired yet. If you show your face at your university, there are still plenty of people who will recognise you. Have you really stopped being a student then?
When people ask you what you do, you still mention your university. “I’ve just graduated”, you say. But they keep asking. “Where are you studying?”
“What are your plans for the future?” You don’t want to hear those questions anymore. So, you hide from people asking them.
After a while, your younger friends start discussing plans for their summer break and what they’re going to do when school starts. This talk isn’t for you anymore. There is no summer break. There are three more months where you need to find a job or become proud of the title “unemployed”.
Anger
After some time, you realise that you have to make all the decisions about your life. All the time. There is no more “go to the university”, “get a degree”, “study well”. Nobody has an idea about what to do next. Yes, most people will scream that you need to find a job. What kind of job? What salary can you expect? What benefits should you ask for?
You become angry. Where did all those choices come from? Who put all that responsibility on you? The same song all the time. Rent. Electric bills. Medical insurance. Groceries. And many more await you.
Bargaining
After finding out a thing or two about the job market, you start wondering about short courses. You need to take them as soon as possible. Your qualification obviously isn’t enough. You need more.
Maybe even do a Master’s degree? PhD? When you think about it, that sounds like a great idea until you remind yourself about your financial struggles.
You start bargaining. Extra shifts? Extra hours? Saving money on nonessentials? It’s hard, but nobody will hire you without these new qualifications that you’ve found on the internet twenty minutes ago.
Then you realise you don’t have any rational reason to spend more money on your education. You can’t even understand why you wanted to do it. There is no point. Getting more education won’t help you. It will not be the same experience you had before.
Depression
At this stage, you miss your student life. You miss lectures and spending time with your friends. It was so much easier. You had a sense of belonging and structure. When you were a student, your future after graduation looked like a plan. Now it feels like chaos.
At some point, you might start seeing dreams about your school. You might even stalk your classmates on the internet trying to see what they’ve been up to. New jobs. Weddings. Kids. Travel.
How are they not feeling as lost as you do?
Acceptance
You realise you’re not a student anymore. There is no specific institution waiting for you. You’re on your own. You still feel the void in your heart, but you know there are countless paths of opportunities in front of you that can fill it in.
Writer. Parent. Sky-diver. Artist. Traveller. CEO and many more. They are all yours to choose from. They can be a piece to a new you. With time, you become excited about your future instead of being scared. You believe you can find something that will help you achieve your goals.
And you follow it.
You might feel lost and scared after graduation. It is normal. You’ve lost a huge part of yourself and you need to find your own way of dealing with it. Give yourself some time. Don’t rush into anything. You are a beautiful person and you will find a path that’s best for you. Best of luck.
