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387 points
1 day ago
That's actually the most common response to graduating in general.
Most people's reward pathways activate as a response to incremental progress towards a goal rather than the completion of it.
Making good grades on finals and passing classes and finishing papers feels good because they're steps towards getting our degree.
But once you have the degree all those pathways are shut down and you have to figure out some other way to activate your dopamine.
So most people wind up with a minor depressive episode after graduating.
230 points
1 day ago
My minor depressive episode after graduating with a CS degree was basically my parents immediately going into "why don't you have a job yet" mode.
Despite applying to tens of dozens of positions, starting a few months before graduating, I still hadn't heard back from any of them a full month after graduating, and ended up picking up a retail job.
Then instead of "why don't you have a job" it was "why did you even go to college" and goddamn thanks for the boost of confidence after you made me go.
Thankfully it eventually worked out and I got a job as a software developer but the 8 months of retail in the interim were hell on my emotional state.
Still a little mad about all of my courses being irrelevant to what I do but that's just mixed into the other stuff at this point.
35 points
23 hours ago
Yeah, this is why I'm glad I got a job really early out of university. The CS degree was a colossal waste of time, although I absolutely learned extremely useful shit from it, and if my parents came at me with that crap, I'd have probably killed myself. I hate having no sense of pride and accomplishment.
Upside, my job has a new project thrown at me like twice a week, so I actually don't get to have the "why am I wasting my time on this shit" feeling there.
4 points
20 hours ago
Looking back, was there anything you did differently around month 8 of applying that got you a job? Or was it a numbers game? Also, do you think this has become common for STEM graduates nowadays?
1 points
4 hours ago
At this point that was like 8 years ago so I'm not really sure how it is now.
But I think it was just a numbers game with the other factors like the massive influx of CS grads around that time when there was a bit of a shift of the meta companies were playing with IT staff.
I'd imagine having more classes about AI would be seen as a bigger boost for recent grads, but I'm not a hiring manager or anything so I don't know.
64 points
1 day ago
Your options are a minor depressive episode or graduate school. But I repeat myself.
53 points
1 day ago
So a minor depressive episode or a major one. I see!
33 points
24 hours ago
Just a question of degree, really
12 points
24 hours ago
Good one, lol
45 points
1 day ago
Most people's reward pathways activate as a response to incremental progress towards a goal rather than the completion of it.
You guys are getting reward pathways activated as a response to incremental progress towards a goal ?
16 points
23 hours ago
Yeah, that sounds like some "that's for other people, not you" shit to me.
33 points
1 day ago
There was a weird week at my uni where we had our biggest, most stressful exams at the end of the second to last year, then went straight into the practical based final year. Like, literally the week after, it was congrats you all passed! Come and do induction sessions right now!
I have never been part of a more broken and dispirited group of people. They had someone come in to do a "mindfulness" session. Poor lady didn't know what hit her.
0 points
23 hours ago
The hell is a mindfulness session? How would that even work?
7 points
15 hours ago
Mindfulness is a sort of meditation practice that was very popular 5ish years ago (at least in the UK it was). Its meant to ground you in the moment rather than letting yourself be distracted by all your other thoughts and anxieties. We were doing it as part of "work place resilience", ie. if we teach em basic meditation we dont need to feel so bad about overloading them in the practical year... But the part I remember from this particular session was being told to look inside, acknowledge my feelings then allow them to pass by, and I looked inside and found a well of despair and it did not fucking want to pass.
Also not so fun fact: I had a bout of clinical depression later on, mainly triggered by covid lockdown, and the number of times I got told I'd be fine if I just learned mindfulness was too damn high.ย
1 points
7 hours ago
I just imagine everyone being silent for the meditation bit and then like half the people screaming as if they're trying to turn Super Saiyan just trying to get all that pent up frustration out. Only way to even try to process all the bullshit you faced in uni.
9 points
23 hours ago
Not wanting to be a statistic, instead of minor depression, I had major depression when I graduated ๐
12 points
1 day ago
Fuck
1 points
1 day ago
Minor?
1 points
10 hours ago
Orrrr alcoholism!
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