'What are you doing next?'

“What are you doing next?” 

This question has been haunting me for months, and it was definitely the most popular question at my graduation ceremony. I tried hard to start conversations on literally anything else to prevent people from asking, but my efforts were vain. Not only I had to explain to my professors that I got rejected from every single application I sent (believe me they were a lot of applications),  I also had to explain to the Dutch parents of my classmates —for whom it is an absolute shock that after a Masters’ degree a person becomes jobless —, that I feel like I am back to the start. On the second glass of non-alcoholic wine offered by the university, the parent prepares for the next question, “Are you staying in the Netherlands?” which forces me to explain that for an international graduate who is no longer a student and not yet an employee, finding a house feels nearly impossible (yes, I am one of the lucky people whose house is being sold).

Determined to answer the question “What are you doing next?” with at least some semblance of a plan, I signed up for a job fair. To spoil the ending, the fair mostly confirmed what I already knew: with the USAID cuts and international law increasingly treated as a joke, finding an entry-level job in the humanitarian sector is delusional. 

During the fair, I attended a workshop where I was encouraged to complete personality tests to find the right position for me and to fill my toolbox with the perfect skills to get the position. This kind of encouragement echoes the mantras my generation grew up with: “You can become anything,” “Be the best version of yourself,” “You are special”. We were taught to stand out, compete, and constantly invest in ourselves and our personal brands. Then, suddenly, we graduate and discover that self-improvement is never enough. While studying, we spent years filling our “toolboxes” with skills and achievements, just to find ourselves years later unable to answer a basic question: Who am I? I just wish that someone had taught us how to answer this question instead. Maybe we were searching for the answer in the wrong place. Rather than concentrating on ourselves, we should look at the people around us, starting with understanding who we are in relation to others. 

The event concluded with a familiar mantra: “Stay positive. Don't become cynical”. The mantra made me think of the two women in their fifties who were in my workshop room and explained that they had recently lost their jobs due to AI-related restructuring and funding cuts. The panel’s advice felt disconnected from the audience's reality. I still do not have an answer to “What are you doing next?”, but maybe uncertainty has taught me something valuable. In a society that constantly asks us to focus on ourselves, the real challenge may be learning how to focus on others.

On Students' Viewpoint, UU students share their views with the rest of the university community. Chiara, a Master's student in Migration, Ethnic Relations & Multiculturalism, is one of the columnists invited for this space. You can also read the perspectives of staff members on Staff's Viewpoint and click here to check out the columns by students and staff in Dutch.