How to Cope with Graduation Anxiety
Managing the Uncertainty of the Future
Whether you’re facing the next step in your education or launching into a career, the future can feel overwhelming. If there’s one thing graduation guarantees, it’s change, and with change comes uncertainty. Whether you have a solid plan in place or not, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed by the idea of life post-graduation.
For some students, that end-of-college uncertainty comes on the heels of intense college burnout — the kind that leaves you mentally and emotionally drained before the next chapter even begins. Uncertainty doesn’t mean you’re unprepared. It just means you’re stepping into a part of life where there’s no set syllabus or clear timeline. That’s okay! Instead of viewing uncertainty as something to fear, it can help to reframe it as a space for growth, exploration, and new possibilities.
Reframe uncertainty as opportunity
While it’s easy to associate the unknown with risk or failure, uncertainty also holds space for discovery. Shifting your mindset from fear to curiosity can make a huge difference when you’re facing pre-graduation anxiety. When you catch yourself spiraling into “what ifs”, try reframing your mindset by asking instead:
What exciting possibilities could be waiting for me?
What new skills, relationships, or passions might I discover?
Where did I thrive in college the most, and how might I harness that into a future career?
Set flexible and realistic goals
You don’t need a five-year plan right now. You may not need a perfect plan for the next five months. Focus on setting realistic and flexible goals that can provide direction without locking you into rigid expectations. Try setting small milestones, such as:
Apply to 3-5 jobs or internships per week
Attend one networking event each month
Explore different career fields by scheduling informational interviews with alumni
Remember, a goalpost can move — and that’s growth, not failure.
Process your emotions in healthy ways
When you keep your emotions bottled up, it’s easy for graduation stress to spiral. Finding outlets to express what you’re feeling can help make things feel a little more manageable. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Journaling for anxiety: Writing about your hopes, fears, and dreams is a good practice for any stage of life. Getting your thoughts on paper is an effective mindfulness exercise that can help you process your feelings and narrow down your goals. When you read them back later, you might be surprised by how much your mindset has evolved — or how much progress you’ve made — in just a short time.
Talking to mentors or advisors: Many of the people you spent the last four years with were at one time in your shoes, too. Ask them for advice on navigating the transition. Their reassurance and hindsight might help you find a clearer path forward.
Creating a vision board: Visualizing your goals, even if they’re broad for now, through creative outlets, can make the future feel less abstract and more inspiring.
Coping With Career and Financial Stress
One of the biggest anxiety triggers associated with graduating is the pressure to “figure it all out” overnight, especially regarding your future career and finances. While this can be especially intense after college, many high school grads face similar stress if they’re entering the workforce or navigating financial independence for the first time.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember: you’re not behind. Career paths are rarely linear, and financial independence is a gradual process, not a race.
Easing financial anxiety
When it comes to graduation stress, financial concerns can add fuel to the fire. If you’re worried about loans, rent, or living expenses, taking small steps can help you regain control:
Make a basic budget: Start simple by tracking what’s coming in and what’s going out.
Explore your options: Full-time work isn’t the only path forward. Internships, part-time jobs, contract work, and freelancing gigs can help build experience and provide a financial buffer while you figure things out.
Seek out resources: Remember all those career center emails you’ve been ignoring for the last three and a half years? Now’s the time to dig them out of your inbox. Alumni networks and social media groups are also good places to find job leads, free financial workshops, and mentorship programs.
Breaking goals into small steps
When you’re staring down a mountain of expectations — career, money, moving out — it’s easy to freeze up. One of the best ways to regain control is to break big, scary goals into smaller, doable steps. For example:
Instead of “find a job immediately,” start with “update my resume this week.”
Instead of “save enough to move out,” start with “save $100 this month.”
Instead of “land my dream career,” start with “interview three people who have my dream career.”
Progress — not perfection — is what builds momentum and confidence.
Dealing With Changes in Social Circles and Identity
Graduation anxiety is about more than worries for the future — a big piece is also grieving the life you’re leaving behind. Leaving behind a close-knit community — whether it’s high school or college — can be emotional. Friends move away, routines change, and your sense of identity may feel less certain. After years of building community and a sense of identity grounded in your classmates, professors, and clubs, it’s natural to feel lost when all that suddenly goes away.
Navigating shifts in friendship
After graduation, your social circle might look a little (or a lot) different. Some of your closest friends might move to new cities, find new jobs, or simply grow in different directions. It’s normal to miss what you had or experience social anxiety at work or in social settings without the comfort of your regular crew. The key is to find balance by staying connected while building new support systems. You might want to:
Prioritize friendships that matter: Keep the old group chats going, or pick up the phone for a monthly call to stay in touch with your closest college friends.
Be open to new connections: Making friends is harder after college, but it’s possible. Join networking groups, hobby clubs, or professional organizations to forge new connections with like-minded people.
Give yourself grace: Rebuilding community after college takes time. If you’re feeling isolated, know that it’s temporary, and you’re not alone.
Redefining your identity
So much of your identity so far has been tied to being a student. When that identity shifts, it can leave you wondering, “Who am I now?”
Self-reflection can be a powerful tool in dissecting such a personal and philosophical question. Instead of clinging to old labels, give yourself permission to explore who you are beyond courses, grades, and campus. Try some open-ended journaling prompts to get the ideas flowing:
What are my most important values?
What excites me most outside of school or academic achievements?
Who do I want to become in this next chapter?
Practicing Self-Compassion and Stress Management
Anxiety before graduation is a natural reaction to one of life’s biggest transitions, and it takes time, patience, and a whole lot of self-kindness to overcome it. Studies show that facing this adjustment period isn’t just stressful—it’s also exceedingly common. A recent review published in BMJ Open found that recent graduates experience increased rates of stress and anxiety during the transition from college to the workforce, largely due to the loss of structure and financial pressure.
Adjusting takes time (and that’s okay)
You may feel an unspoken expectation that you should “have it all together” immediately after graduating. The truth is, though, it’s perfectly normal to deal with situational anxiety post-graduation and feel a little lost for a while.
Self-compassion goes a long way here. Instead of beating yourself up for feeling anxious, treat yourself the way you’d treat a friend going through a big change — with patience, understanding, and gentle encouragement.
Stress management techniques that actually work
When graduation anxiety feels overwhelming, stress management techniques can help calm your mind and body. Here are some effective methods for how to deal with stress in college’s final weeks:
Box breathing technique: Inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale for four counts, hold for four counts. Repeat a few times to signal to your nervous system that you’re safe.
Meditation and mindfulness: Even just a few minutes a day of guided meditation can lower anxiety and help you stay grounded in the present moment.
Setting healthy boundaries: It’s okay to set limits with well-meaning friends or family members who keep asking, “what’s next?” Explore mental health tips for college students on the brink of graduation and be sure to prioritize your mental health just as much as your career goals.
Graduates who reach out for post-college mental health resources aren’t just surviving the transition — they’re thriving. Research shows that early intervention with mental health services can significantly reduce long-term anxiety and depression risks.
Moving Forward With Confidence and Resilience
Whether you’re stepping into college life or transitioning into the working world after graduation, remember that progress matters more than perfection. You don’t need to have it all figured out today, or even next year. Post-graduation success is a journey filled with twists, turns, and opportunities you can’t always see right away.
On the tough days, it helps to have a little hope in a jar. 💌
Create a self-care jar filled with affirmations, soothing ideas, or things that make you smile. It’s a small tool with big impact.
#SelfCareTools #MentalHealthSupport #YouDeserveCare
This Pride, we’re reminding our LGBTQ+ community that your mental health matters, today and every day. Reach out. Get support. You deserve it. #PrideAndSupport #MentalHealthAwareness #LGBTQSupport
The Importance of Pride Month LGBTQI+ rights are human rights, but unfortunately, that still isn't status quo.
This month is LGBTQI+ Pride Month. In the US and other countries, many places display rainbow flags, companies have promotions, events, or products “in honor of LGBTQI+ Pride,” and there are cities around the world that have a parade sometime in the month of June.
That said, many people don’t know or understand why Pride Month exists and/or the purpose of the parade. Some react with fear and prejudice, some are puzzled as to why it’s necessary, while others think of it as just a big excuse to dress up and party.
But LGBTQI+ Pride Month actually has a very specific history and purpose. For many, if not most, in the LGBTQI+ community, it’s a deeply meaningful and moving day that has great significance.
Understanding the history of Pride
In order to understand Pride Month and why there are pride parades, it’s important to understand the history. The first recorded march for the rights of LGBTQI+ folks in the United States was in 1969 in New York City. The regular, systematic, and violent oppression of people in that community reached a boiling point, at a time when other social movements — the Civil Rights movement, Women’s Liberation movement, Disability Rights movement — were gaining momentum and fighting for oppressed groups to have a voice and demand for equal human treatment.
At that time, the police, and individuals felt it well within their rights to oppress and cause bodily harm to people within the LGBTQI+ community. The march was a response to that treatment — it was a demand that people within the community be treated with the basic rights, respect, and dignity afforded other human beings in the country.
Those first marchers were courageous. They risked their lives by exposing themselves to the public as part of the community and in doing so, they made the community visible and empowered. After this first march, it became an annual event. The next year there were also marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Today, there are 150 cities around the world that host Pride events during the summer.
So why are these events still happening?
Prejudice, oppression, violence, and death are still, unfortunately, common for people in the LBTQI+ community in the United States and across the globe. Many states in the US are continuing to pass legislation to deny the rights of people in this community. In the US, LBTQI+ youth are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual, cis youth because of the continued deep prejudice, hatred, and lack of acceptance they perceive around them.
Around the world, there are laws specifically being passed to deny the rights of LBTQI+ people to live, love, work, receive medical care, go to the bathroom, exercise, and even simply exist. People in this community continue to be subjected to rejection, prejudice, violence, and death.
For this reason, Pride Month — and the pride parades — continue to be deeply important in the continued solidarity, fight for human rights, and visibility of the LGBTQI+ community. Additionally, and equally important, is the label “pride.” For a group of people who are told continuously — through laws, religions, media, bullying, and directly — that LBTQI+ people are less-than or should not exist, it is deeply psychologically important that there be counter-messaging. Shame is debilitating and can lead to mental illness, addiction, isolation, and death.
It is deeply important that there be a visible, supported, and joyous event telling people of the LBTQI+ community that it is a beautiful, diverse, supported, and welcome community, and one to be proud to be a member of, and one that deserves the rights and dignities of every human.
The Importance of Mental Health Awareness Month - We can all play a part in raising mental health awareness and decreasing stigma.
Did you know that Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in the month of May since 1949? It was originally designated as such by the national advocacy organization Mental Health America. Annually during the month of May, organizations, groups, and individuals run campaigns that are designed to raise awareness and educate the public about mental health conditions.
Here's what you should know about the importance of Mental Health Awareness Month and how you can get involved.
Why do we need Mental Health Awareness Month?
People consistently rank health as one of the most important things in life. Sadly, however, optimal mental health is often not included. Mental health is many times the proverbial “elephant in the room”—we know that it is there, but it makes us uncomfortable to address it.
Stigma, misinformation, and disinformation all create substantial barriers in raising mental health awareness. We believe that stigma associated with mental illness is the most problematic of these. Stigma is defined as a mark of shame or discredit. In our book, Understanding Mental Illness, we discuss the stigma of mental illness and how it impacts those living with mental health conditions. Stigma is a label placed upon people to set them apart, to make them feel ashamed, disgraced, or embarrassed about who they are, often because of factors beyond their control.
What are the consequences of the stigma around mental illness?
Because of this stigma, people are more likely to discuss physical health conditions rather than mental health conditions with others. Similarly, they are also more assertive in seeking care for physical ailments than they are for mental health disorders. Surveys show that the average time between the onset of mental health symptoms and the decision to seek care for mental health conditions can be a year or more. Making a difference in the lives of people suffering from mental illness becomes quite difficult when such a delay exists between symptoms and interventions. As with physical health conditions, early diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions lead to better outcomes.
How do we as a society move forward?
Despite the barriers that exist, all hope is not lost. Increasingly, key stakeholders are having impactful conversations on ways to improve the mental health of Americans. Campaigns such as Mental Health Awareness month are playing a great role in important mental health issues such as awareness and access.
What can I do to help raise mental health awareness?
Each of us can play a part, whether big or small, in raising mental health awareness and thereby decreasing stigma. Mental Health Awareness month is a great time to take part in this cause by being an ambassador for mental health in one of the following ways:
Volunteer at or make a monetary donation to Mental Health America (MHA) or National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Be supportive of a friend or loved one who is struggling with a mental health condition.
Help raise mental health awareness on social media by engaging with platforms that support mental health causes.
Pay attention to your language. Avoid language that is negative (e.g. “she is bipolar," “that’s schizo," “they are crazy or psycho”).
Learn about mental health. Listen to a TED talk or podcast on a mental health topic. Read a book or blog about mental health or self-help issues. These are great ways to not only learn about mental health but also to improve your mental well-being.
Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) are spontaneous, unhelpful thoughts that pop into your mind — often without you noticing. They can fuel anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.
