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Competition or support?

If you didn't know it already, I am getting extremely close to the end of my long road of education. After 12 years of school and 3 years of University I am going to get to put on a black cape and a strange hat to pretend I am in a Harry Potter film for a few hours. This might seem like a relief, and believe me it is, but it is also terrifying. I am now suppose to grow up, get a job, figure out what I want in life and achieve it.
But that is not the purpose of this post because I think we all know how students feel about the question "so what are you going to do after university?".
By getting closer to graduation me and probably a lot of my friends have started to experience the competitive side of your coursemates. Suddenly the topic on everyone's lips has gone from 'what results you get on your exams' to 'who's got the interview with the company they all applied to work for'. This has come to the stage when your previous coursemates are becoming your enemies. When you get offered that internship they don't say congratulations and smile. They say congratulations and then you can see their brain burning out wondering why they didn't get offered the job instead of you.
This is something I've struggled with myself, how am I going to be happy about someone else getting a job that I wanted. So recently I've been re-evaluating myself and I've discovered a few things.
1. If someone gets a job, that means one less person applying for the next job and who knows, it might be even better than the first one.
2. When someone else has gotten a job there is nothing you can do about it so you might as well be happy for them because in this case they happened to be better for the job.
3. Just because someone else got the job you really wanted doesn't mean they are cleverer than you, funnier than you or better than you in any way. It simply means they impressed someone better than you. Instead of being grumpy about it, why not think back on your interview and consider what you could have done differently. Job interviews are as hard as exams in university, you need to practice to do well.
4. Don't see it as competition with your friends, support them. Wish them good luck on their interview because if you're nice to them maybe they'll be nice to you and come back and tell you exactly what they asked and that way you will be prepared. Use it as an opportunity to get help from someone who has already landed a job.
And last but not least,
5. Don't stop believing that you can do it. As often as you might doubt yourself there is no need to freak out for no reason. If your coursemates manage to get a job, so can you!

As cliché as this all sounds it might actually help you not to give your coursemate that disappointed look when they get a job because in the end, they are your friends and that is more important that the job that you didn't get.



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