There’s a moment in third year when it suddenly hits you: this is it.
One second, you’re moving into your first-year halls, making questionable pasta in a shared kitchen, and the next, you’re staring down the barrel of final deadlines, job applications, and the terrifying concept of “the real world.”
Graduation has always been in the distance, a milestone that felt miles away. But then it sneaks up on you. And when it does, it’s overwhelming.
Suddenly, conversations shift, everyone’s talking about grad schemes, applications, or moving back home. LinkedIn is full of classmates announcing internships and “exciting opportunities.”
Even if you’re proud of them, it’s impossible not to feel that creeping comparison, and let’s be honest, most of us don’t feel ready.
Uni doesn’t hand you a manual on how to “be an adult.”
After all the teaching it’s up to you to figure out how to be a fully functioning adult at 21.
The scariest part isn’t just leaving uni, it’s leaving the structure, for three years, your life has been timetabled in lectures, essays, and exams.
Suddenly, that scaffolding disappears, and you’re left asking, what now?
It’s easy to feel like you should have it all figured out by graduation. But the truth is, hardly anyone does.
The good news? This feeling is universal, every third year has that moment of panic, whether they admit it or not.
Some hide it behind endless productivity, some by ignoring it completely, but it’s there.
And maybe that’s okay, maybe we don’t have to know everything yet.
Instead of thinking of graduation as the end, what if we see it as a beginning?
Uni gave us tools, critical thinking, independence, friendships, resilience, they might not come with a salary attached, but they matter.
Life after uni won’t look the same for everyone, and that’s not a bad thing, some will get grad jobs, some will take a break, some will try something totally different.
The panic comes from thinking there’s one right path. But there isn’t.
So, if you’re in third year and feeling the graduation dread, know this: you don’t need all the answers.
It’s okay to be figuring it out. The panic doesn’t mean you’re failing, it means you care.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly the push you need to take the next step, even if it’s a wobbly one.
