Ds depressed about finishing university

[puseyst]

DS has just graduated from Cambridge, and is due to start a professional training programme with a financial services firm. This involves further study before work. He's done exceedingly well to get the job, with something like 2% receiving an offer.

He's come to me tonight and says that he is really upset about leaving uni. He feels like his time at university is not done yet. Like many, he's only really had two years at university thanks to covid. He was always a high flyer, but graduated with a 2.1. He says that he was depressed all of this last year and could barely keep on top of the work. He says he wishes that he'd taken the year out to reset before actually working hard for his finals.

He feels like he's missed out on a lot of the university experience, and is sad that his college cohort has now all dispersed.

He says he has no motivation to go into his training programme. He wishes he'd stayed on at Cambridge or gone over to Oxford for further study.

Are these just normal feelings? or do we have a bigger problem going on here ?

@xenia: I don't see why he "needs to get on with it". The lad is what 21? He's got the rest of his life to spend being a drudge and earning money for someone else. Live a little, while you still can, I say.

I'd tell him that his feelings are entirely normal OP. I really feel for any young people that were aged 15-25 during the pandemic. I think they all missed out on so much educationally and socially and it's not at all surprising that many of them feel and mourn that loss and don't feel ready to move on to the next stage of life when they didn't get to do the last one properly.

I think I'd encourage him to keeping talking, to give the training course his best shot and just give it a bit of time. It might also help to go on a low dose anti-depressant for a few months and see if that helps. It's a hard transition anyway going from being a student to FT work - I remember I really struggled with the relentlessness of it and the lack of regular breaks. Your whole life until you start FT work is broken down into 6-12 week chunks of work, followed by the holidays. It's bloody hard to go from that to only 5 or so weeks off a year and the rest of the time you've got to keep going. So, I'd be sympathetic, but also encouraging.

I think that most students feel down when they leave university. They have been in a bubble for a number of years and now are expected to jump into some graduate role where the reality is that it takes a few years to
become established.
I am a firm believer in taking a gap year before A levels. Once you leave university you feel the pressure to get a job
Your ds needs to take a year out to travel / volunteer. Needs to relax for a little while and get his mental health sorted out before he starts a demanding role

Didn’t realise this was an old thread.

me too!

Normal. And FOMO is a much bigger thing for today’s young people because of the lifestyle pressures created by social media.

Were you at Oxbridge OP? And what career have you pursued yourself? IME many talented highfliers will correctly be awarded a 2:1. It is a very good degree, enough for almost anything he may wish to do in future. He lacks maturity if he is blaming covid for his failure to get a first. There will be brilliant students in his year who got a first. Unless there was a bizarre exceptional circumstance, I strongly suspect he got the degree he deserved - the system is very robust. I strongly suspect he got the degree he deserves and you should encourage him to grow up and face forward. It’s time for him to become an adult.

unless… Are his comments about not wanting to leave uni partly due to a secret hunkering to become an academic? I think you may need a 1st if you want funding to get funding for further studies. It is a different life from being an undergrad but a really amazing life. I knew loads of talented people from my cohort who got a 2:1 like me and went on to have spectacular careers but I knew others who were cerebral, natural-born teachers and research-minded - academia was truly where they belonged.

Although he is right; life won’t be as much fun now in the way he wants it to
be if he is intent on pursuing a professional career. He may be working for 50 year

it does sound like he needs some excitement to look forward to, some spontaneity.

I would recommend he takes a one year sabbatical or year out once he finishes his professional training and has topped up his bank account. Or he tells his firm he wants an overseas secondment in future (get that on the table early and they will help you get there).