What Waits After Graduation?

I thought that when I step foot on the stage for my graduation to receive my diploma is the start of the best next years of my life, but I was wrong. It was the beginning of a whole completely different new chapter which was more terrifying than I thought it would be.

The college has been a big part of my life. Not only that I got to develop skills that I wanted even before Senior High School, but I met a lot of people who made some big impacts in my life. When I was just going to the city to take the exam for college, I was really nervous on the bus, thinking that I will have a new life without my family beside me. Although I am living with another grandparent from my father's side, who I don't know if I should still call a father, I felt like an outcast because I was thinking of a lot of things during that time.

I took an Information Technology course in college, totally different from the track that I took in Senior High which was Tourism. That track has nothing to do with the course. The adjustment from that alone was already a big challenge for me. I had a hard time learning everything, even the basics, and another part was that I don't know anyone in the school so I did my best to at least get along with them. I remember that I didn't really have any friends during the first semester, especially since most of my classmates are already friends back in their high school days. And since I was not catching up with everything, I had a failing mark during half of the first semester and I failed one of my classes. But since that class was not really an "academic" class, I was able to get it the following year. However, the class that I had a failing mark was a programming class which was crucial for my course.

I talked about this one before in one of my articles, but I will tell the story again. My professor back then assumed that each and every one of us already know the basics of programming, so as a result, I always do mistakes in the codes and the paper works that he make us do. What I learned though in those times was that I just really have to rely on myself and the professors are just there to guide me because you are already in college. But still, I don't like that kind of teacher. And it kind of shows because during the second semester, I heard that most of my classmates in that section took a different class because of him. And I might sound harsh but I don't think I saw all of them during graduation last July 28, 2022.

I consider that failure as one of the biggest things that really impact me throughout my journey in college. It was one of the times when I was challenged emotionally and physically to the point that I was not taking care of myself anymore.

But that happened before and I am already a graduate now so I don't want to look back at the negativity, instead, I want to continue learning.

I have to be honest, I am completely nervous and devastated because I am pressuring myself to work right now. I have that eagerness to work because I want to help my mother in terms of the financial problems we are facing, but at the same time, I am scared of the companies' qualifications for candidates. Even though I saw a lot of job advertisements where they are looking for fresh graduates because of the pandemic, my mind is divided between personal things and school life. I don't have any work training in terms of my skills because I didn't take on-the-job training during the last semester in college. There were a lot of instances where the university didn't allow many of their students to go out because of the pandemic so I had to just watch a lot of LinkedIn Learning videos to fulfill the requirements they gave us which were pieces of training and webinars. Although I do have some skills and I am really willing to learn, there is a lot of competition, not just from the people who are also looking for a job but also in the financial situation we are currently facing.

I really need some advice from the readers, especially those who are currently working. I want to know how can I develop my self-esteem and where to start because I don't know anything about the "real world".