- I’m the youngest of three siblings — and the only Gen Zer.
- When I graduated this year, I faced the realities of job-hunting and adulthood.
- I learned lessons from observing my sisters and other millennials navigate their 20s.
After 16 years in the education system, my time as a student ended on a random Wednesday afternoon in April. I was finally free from lectures, tests, and group projects — but thrust into the realities of a scarier world: adulthood.
In this world, there were no set milestones to tell me I was on the right track. Everyone seemed to be on a path to something greater, but I felt directionless.
I know I’m not alone. Every 20-something has probably felt at least a little bit lost in life. But amid mass layoffs and the threat of AI replacing jobs, stepping into the job market as a fresh graduate in 2024 felt like diving head-first into an abyss.
An August report by an early careers platform, Handshake, surveyed 1,925 graduating students. They found that 57% of the students felt pessimistic about starting their careers — an increase from 49% of graduating students last year. Of the 57%, 63% said the competitive job market contributed to their pessimism.
The stress of not knowing whether I could secure a job was compounded by uncertainty about my career. I had studied journalism but wasn’t sure if it was the right fit. I had the irrational fear that if my first job turned out to be the “wrong” choice, I’d be relegated back to the start line of the rat race.
Amid a brewing quarter-life crisis, I looked to my sisters, aged 28 and 31. They do many things that people of my generation may scoff at, like watching Instagram reels exclusively and using the laughing emoji. But they seem to have figured out one thing: life after college.
Here’s what I’ve learned from watching them conquer the Roaring Twenties.
Life doesn’t end when school ends
Toward the end of college, I mentally prepared myself for the fast-approaching expiration of youth.
“You must treasure your university days,” relatives constantly reminded me at yearly Lunar New Year gatherings. They painted adulthood as a bleak portrait of bills, mundanity, and loneliness. So, when the time came, I was reluctant to let go of my identity as a student.
But as the youngest sibling, I also watched my sisters graduate from college, get married, and build their own homes. I saw them achieve promotions at work, find new hobbies, and start a life outside the one I knew of us growing up together.
Adulting isn’t easy — I now know that. But there are also so many new milestones and freedoms that come with it, and there is so much to be excited about.
A job is just a job
My elder sister works in communications and the other in architecture. Even when their hours stretched into the night and weekends, they built a whole life outside work.
One started a sticker side business, and the other is now an avid runner.
It wasn’t always smooth. My second-oldest sister burned out after working too much in her first job and took a career break. She prioritized work-life balance at her next job.
In that way, millennials and Gen Zers are alike. A 2024 report by Deloitte found that work-life balance topped the priorities for both generations when choosing an employer. When asked which areas of life were most important to their sense of identity, both generations agreed that jobs came second only to friends and family.
Distancing myself from the idea that my job had to be my one true passion lifted a weight off my shoulders. As much as I still want a job that gives me purpose, I also make time for other aspects of life that fulfill me, like working out and spending time with friends.
Just give it time
As with most worries, the fear that I’d never find a job was unfounded. In July, I started my first job as a junior reporter. But when the first day at work finally ended, I trudged home in a daze.
“I have to do this every day for the next 40 years?” I asked my second-oldest sister, who laughed. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the job. It was the change in routine from school life to a 9-to-5 that unsettled me.
“You’ll get used to it,” my sister said. Six months in, I still don’t know if I will. But seeing my millennial counterparts thrive has encouraged me.
It’s not just my siblings who have set an example. At work, my millennial colleagues are a constant source of guidance to the Gen Zers in the office. On social media, millennial influencers brand themselves as “internet big sisters” and give advice on navigating the complex years of their 20s.
Older millennials are now turning 40, but they were once in the position of Gen Zers, being scoffed at by the older generations for being “lazy” and changing work culture.
Now, they’ve drawn the map for Gen Zers’ entry into the strange world of adulthood. It’s made adulting just a little less scary.
