Graduation season is here, marking a time for seniors to celebrate their hard work. However, it also brings uncertainty about what the future holds.
Some students are worried about how the current political climate affects their ability to find jobs post-graduation.
“I heard that people in Congress are trying to make my degree not as professional as it should be, and that makes me worried that there’s not gonna be any positions for me available,” said communication disorders senior Sarai Guzman. “I am starting to ask myself, ‘What if I have to return to college and get a different degree?’”
Guzman’s concern may stem from a law passed in July 2025 that caps borrowing for new graduate students at $20,500 per year and $100,000 total. “Professional” programs like medicine, dentistry and law have higher limits of $50,000 per year and $200,000 total.
Guzman, who aspires to be a speech-language pathologist, is not directly affected by this policy, but she is trying to navigate a broader sense of instability before graduation, including anxiety over graduating during the ongoing Iran war.
“During COVID-19, I had to graduate high school through Zoom and now, I am graduating from the University during an ongoing war with other countries,” Guzman said, “To know that the world has suffered when you graduated high school and is continuing to suffer as you are graduating college sucks.”
Despite these concerns, many seniors are embracing a bold mindset as they prepare for life beyond graduation. Computer science senior Matthew Garcia said that it’s important for seniors to face the unknown.
“Even though I know that nothing is guaranteed about what’s going to happen in the future, I’m still just running into it headfirst without fear,” Garcia said.
After graduating, Garcia plans to pursue an M.S. in statistics and data science from the Department of Mathematics.
At times, Garcia has felt an intense pressure to make his immigrant family proud of him and his success, which is one of the reasons why he decided to pursue a master’s degree.
“For us Mexicans, our families constantly build off of and improve from each other,” Garcia said. “My dad got his master’s in electrical engineering, so I felt a lot of pressure to at least match him, if not improve on that.”
During their experience at the University, some seniors struggled to figure out what they wanted to major in and their career path.
At first, Garcia had doubts about whether to continue studying computer science, as he didn’t know what major he felt passionate about.
“I chose to major in computer science simply because I was good at it and I was still trying to figure out what career path I was truly passionate about,” Garcia said. “But after talking to other students about why they chose to pursue their majors, I discovered that if I wanted to pursue my dreams, I shouldn’t ever shy away from my ambition.”
Other students found themselves having to completely change their career paths because they no longer aligned with their aspirations.
Biology senior Ashlynn Armour realized during her fall semester of junior year that she actually wanted to become a lawyer.
“I realized I couldn’t really connect with medicine the way I thought I would, and when I took my first law class, I actually loved it and felt more passionate about it,” Armour said. “And especially with everything going on politically, I just want to be able to do more.”
Following her first law class, Armour decided to minor in legal studies. After graduating, Armour plans to build her experience in the legal field through interning before applying to law school.
“Get experience as early as possible because you can take classes and think you enjoy something, but until you’re actually in that environment, you won’t know how it feels,” Armour said. “College is just as much about finding what you don’t want to do as what you do.”
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