How can I help my son feel better after graduating?

[Theworld0]

DS is graduating from Oxbridge this year. He had a rough final year and messed up one paper, so although he has ended up with a 2:1, he feels as if he has failed somehow.
He has a decent grad job lined up in London in a finance sort of area. It should be a good career and well paid once he gets through the professional exams, though not banking/consulting money.
He just seems really flat about everything. He’ll probably live at home at first to save money, but he’s worried he’ll feel isolated from his uni friends. A few friends might flatshare not too far from us, but if he joined them he’d barely save anything for the first year or two. And tbh may be too late for him to join in anyways.
He is also constantly rethinking everything. He had a consulting offer too, but knows really that it probably wasn’t the right fit for him — he gets anxious, doesn’t love self-promotion, and I don’t think brutal hours would suit him. But he still has that “what if?” feeling, especially as lots of friends are going into consulting, banking, etc.
He did economics and is going into a finance-type job, but his real interests have always been history, politics and international relations. He keeps wondering whether he should throw it all in and do a politics master’s or try to get into something more in that world.
I’m not sure what to say to him really. I don’t want to dismiss it, but I also think he’s tired and disappointed after finals and maybe not in the best frame of mind to make big life decisions. How do I help him feel a bit more positive and less like he’s already made the wrong choices?

This is a good point. If he’s looking at finance jobs with an oxbridge degree, I think he can enjoy his time now for a couple of years, before saving for a home/future.

I think some people feel a huge loss when they leave a university environment. I didn’t go, but I have seen this in my friends at Cambridge, Manchester, Hull, Bristol and other places. I think it’s not too much to say that it’s a sort of grieving process. Also, it was the focus and has been the focus of all his academic life. Everything was geared towards getting into university, and this particular university, and on getting the degree. It’s no wonder that he’s feeling cautious and in the circumstances I don’t think a “boot up the arse“ is necessarily what he needs although some brisk “get on with its” might help at times.

The big thing is that one’s professional career changes overtime. So does one’s learning and education. What he learned at Oxbridge will have given him the tools to think and to forge his own continually path. I hope also that he will retain an enquiring and challenging mind. He will continue to study and to create his own life. It’s really hard for him, because he’s a bit like a runner bean whose bamboo pole has been taken away.

On the other hand, decades down the line, most of the people I referred to above who felt a real pang on leaving university, particularly Cambridge, now have very little interest in the place.

Phew, this is a very serious forward plan for only 21.
I know it's good to be sensible but he's got a little room before focusing so intently on the ISA.
Perhaps he could use some encouragement to let a short period of time just unfold, maybe a couple of years?

If he has a grad job (and more than one offer too!), he has done amazingly well in this difficult, competitive job market. No one cares what his degree class is from this point on and there is little difference between achieving a first and a 2:1 in terms of which doors are open to him in future. He should stick with the job offer he has and see how it goes. He is still young and there is plenty of time to change career direction in the future including going back to study.

I changed career from being an academic to finance at age 30 and I then did a finance MSc part time funded by an employer.

Reassure him on how well he has done and many people end up on a different career path to the one they started and nothing is set in stone.