17 May 2020

There’s a lot of pressure to figure out what you want to do with your life. It starts around kindergarten and it never really stops. And come Year 12, you’re expected to have a solid plan in place.

Well the thing is, most of us suck at making decisions. Whether it’s changing your Maccas order three times at the drive-thru or figuring out what you want to do after high school, decisions can be messy. Factor in the current situation and it feels like making decisions has only gotten messier, with open days, campus tours and expos being cancelled left, right and centre.

So, don’t feel like you’re the only one twiddling your thumbs and wondering how on earth you’re meant to figure out your post-school plans now. Here’s five ways help envision what next year and beyond will look like for you.

1. Attend the Year13 Expo

Careers expos around Australia may have been cancelled, but we’ve got your back with the Year13 Expo! Like a regular career expo, it’s a great way to suss your options, ask questions and actually talk to people in those careers to figure out whether you will enjoy that path or not. But the beauty is that you don’t have to leave the house of even get out of bed, as the Year13 Expo is entirely online (sweeeeeeet)!

The Year13 Expo is free (yew!) and runs over five days (18-22 May). You can head here for more details and you can head straight here if you’re keen on winning a cheeky $5,000.

2. Check out virtual tours

Seeing a campus can really help when it comes to figuring out if you vibe with a particular uni. But alas, you can’t step on some campuses soil just yet. But thanks to technology, you can be teleported to some campuses via a virtual tour.

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) has a 360 virtual tour that explores each of their campuses in Melbourne, Brisbane, North Sydney, Strathfield, Ballarat and Canberra. Each of the campuses look absolutely top-notch with decked out gymnasiums and common areas that host an array of stalls like vintage clothes (hullo thrift shopping on campus!) and small business goods to name a few. The campuses just look so damn good - see for yourself!

3. Check out students’ real stories

Who better to let you know what uni life is really like than students who are there right now living it up. Spend some of your time on Youtube looking up students’ day in the life vlogs or searching for some Instagram accounts that are documenting their university experience.

They’ll keep it real and give you a tantalising taste of what life at that university will look like for you – tears, laughs and all. If you’re keen to know more about ACU, suss out some of their student stories!

4. Do a personality test

While a personality test isn’t going to give you a final answer about what you should do, they can definitely help you out. They’re able to highlight what your strengths and weaknesses are. When you figure out how you operate, you can start to work out what sort of jobs and careers would work for you.

We’ve got our own personality assessment that you can use to build a career plan for next year too, this way you’ll feel like you have a picture in your head of what’s on the cards for you.

5. Schedule online chats with a university

You’re never going to figure out what you want to do if you don’t get out there and talk to people. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask how to get to where you want to be.

ACU are going to be an exhibitor at the Year13 Expo, during which time you’ll be able to live chat with their staff and ask any burning questions you may have about their courses, campus and everything in between. Or, if you already have some questions and you don’t want to wait – jump over to their profile now and submit an enquiry and they’ll get back to you as soon as they can.

Don’t feel like the current situation has made it too hard to make plans for the future. There’s a whole world on the other side of all of this, where you can still commit to studying your dream career – don’t let anything stop ya.