With the end of the academic year fast approaching, many final year students are starting to make plans for when they complete their course. This is an exciting time and you should feel proud of all you have achieved during your time at Sussex, but changes can also bring feelings of anxiety about the future.

Here are a few suggestions that we hope will help you:

Tolerate the uncertainty 

Everyone’s future is uncertain, even if we have a concrete plan. So if you don’t have a job lined up for when you finish uni then that’s okay.

Perhaps it’s about trying to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing for a bit longer – thinking that it’s okay that you don’t have everything worked out yet. It might be useful to make a list of what you’d ideally like to do after you finish university if there were no constraints and anything was possible. If money or location weren’t an issue how would you like your life to look? What job would you want? Allow yourself to fantasise and dream.

It doesn’t have to be perfect

Just because these are your final year exams and assignments, it doesn’t mean you have to carry them out perfectly. Actually, because this is your final year then you can probably be let off the hook for not doing as well at these exams compared with your others. There’s probably a lot going on inside your head right now. So what you’re doing, managing to do, is enough.   

Think about what you have 

With university coming to an end you will be saying many goodbyes – to friends, lecturers and maybe to Brighton. You could use this time to make the most of what you enjoy about university life, whether that’s the beach or your best friend.

Turn regret into what could come next 

What a great realisation to come to if you realise that you regret not spending more time out partying with friends while at university. You’ve realised what is important to you – making connections. And it doesn’t have to end there – you can use this realisation to nurture what you’d like from your future that is still to come.

Accept how you feel 

Endings can be unsettling and difficult. Go easy on yourself. You’re bound to feel a bit mixed up right now. Let yourself feel what you’re feeling.

Join the Sussex Alumni Network

You might be finishing your course, but you will always be a part of Sussex. When you graduate, you'll become a lifelong member of a network of more than 190,000 alumni and supporters worldwide and will enjoy lots of free member benefits and services, including our mentoring and networking platform Sussex Connect and careers support.