If You Love It, That Tells You Something!
I’m taking a gap year to work after graduating before applying to grad school, and I have spent the last few quarters working as a student assistant at the EEU, a UW-affiliated preschool with mixed general and special education classrooms. When I pictured what I wanted to do for a year when I graduated, I knew I wanted to stay at the EEU as a full-time staff member– my job makes me so happy, and I love what I do! However, there was a voice of doubt in my head telling me that being a preschool teacher didn’t sound “impressive” enough, and that if I wanted my bachelor’s degree to seem worth it I needed to find the highest paying and most impressive-sounding job that I could. That voice of doubt is lying– the fact that my job makes me so happy tells me that I’m exactly where I need to be and can actually inform the career decisions I make in the future, since I have an idea of the type of work that makes me feel the most valuable and impactful. I make a good living wage at the EEU and will make good professional connections there, and I will also enjoy my job a lot more than if I let my self-doubt or misguided ideas of what a job after graduating college should look like get in my way.
Tags:
Academics – Psychology, Class of 2023
Interests – Non-Profit/Social Justice/Education
Identities – she/her
