By Lily Hirst, Content Team Academic.

Anxieties build and creep up around the idea of university and the stress of it beginning a new adventure, but nobody talks about the end. Leaving university behind it’s hard to find positives. Leaving behind your ‘new life’ and ‘new friendships’ and your new ‘normal’. Moving cities is a big jump, but the focus on moving back is always presented as easy.

After speaking to multiple candidates, some of these being friends and others not, the importance of leaving your new normal isn’t spoken about enough. Leaving university is just as much of a life changing event as going to university. Going back to old environments, seeing old faces, experiencing the challenges of being at a different life point as some others who didn’t attend university, they have jobs, others settled in their own homes.  But their ‘normal’ and your ‘normal’ are different, there is no right time for anything. We all walk different paths of life.  

Referencing Cori-Lei Berryman- a student graduating Leeds Trinity University in July 2025 she explained the “overwhelming” feeling of the end in sight and how the “uncertainty” of her next steps regarding her career path “could easily lead other students into an anxious rut”. Cori, 21 in July soon realised the end of her degree doesn’t mean the end, she developed a plan for her further studies and future potential career paths. I met Cori on the first day of our undergraduate degree and we have been inseparable ever since, despite being inseparable we both have very different university paths this involves graduating a year apart, we both have experienced different anxieties related to the end of university, as living in different cities after sharing a house for three years hung over daunting us. Friendship is known to help anxiety, and it is proven that 85% of university students stay friends, 60% of these being friendships made on the first day (Yugo,2024). I’m lucky enough to be included in the 60%. Friendships at university often serve as vital sources of emotional and psychological support. According to Wilcox, Winn, and Fyvie-Gauld (2005), students who form meaningful friendships in the early stages of university transition more effectively and are less likely to experience feelings of loneliness and homesickness. These relationships provide a buffer against stress and anxiety, particularly during times of academic or personal difficulty (Pittman & Richmond, 2008).

Social integration is positively associated with mental health outcomes, including lower rates of depression and anxiety (Haslam et al., 2009). Moreover, structured social roles, such as volunteering or participating in local groups, provide a sense of continuity and identity, which are often disrupted during transitional life stages (Iyer et al., 2009). Engaging in activities in the community, you are either moving back to or the community you are newly settling into, is a perfect way of reconnecting with life outside of the university ‘bubble’. Academic achievements are something to be extremely proud of but there is meaning beyond education, leaving university beholds more than just leaving your academic days behind. 

Life after university can be filled with a sense of loss due the uncertainty of our next movements, but you’re not alone in this feeling, it is common and completely understandable. 

Understanding post-university anxiety is hard and proved to be very common. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 50 studies involving 39,668 graduate students revealed that 34.8% experienced anxiety, with 19.1% reporting mild anxiety, 15.1% moderate anxiety, and 10.3% severe anxiety (Chi, T., Cheng, L. and Zhang, Z ,2023).

Contributing factors to anxiety post university are the pressures to find the right and suitable job. Many graduates feel pressure to find meaningful work quickly, often under-prepared for the realities of the labour market (Tomlinson, 2008). Another possible contributor could be the feeling of losing yourself as you step out the university routine. But the most common factor contributing to post graduate anxiety is social disconnection, once graduating disconnecting from social events increases loneliness, this triggers anxiety. Strategies to help you rebuild your social life once finishing university is using the options in the local area to join more clubs, reconnecting with school friends or planning things in advance to ensure everyone is free from other commitments. 

Anxiety after university is not a sign of personal failure but a common and understandable response to a major life transition. However, there is reason for optimism, so many doors open after university these involves career opportunities, travel opportunities and the option to study at a postgraduate degree level.

Leaving university it is so easy to think about the negatives that dwell over you before your student years come to an end but so many positives remain such as viewing graduation as a fresh start, bad habits and bad routines can come to an end, opportunities in different careers and the chance to conker new goals .

REFERENCES:

Haslam, S. A., Jetten, J., Postmes, T., & Haslam, C. (2009). Social identity, health and well-being: An emerging agenda for applied psychology. Applied Psychology, 58(1), 1–23.

Iyer, A., Jetten, J., Tsivrikos, D., Postmes, T., & Haslam, S. A. (2009). The more (and the more compatible) the merrier: Multiple group memberships and identity compatibility as predictors of adjustment after life transitions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 48(4), 707–733.

Yugo. (2024). Make best friends for life at university. Retrieved from https://yugo.com/en-gb/make-best-friends-for-life-at-university–666400

.Wilcox, P., Winn, S., & Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005). “It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people”: The role of social support in the first-year experience of higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 30(6), 707–722.

Pittman, L. D., & Richmond, A. (2008). University belonging, friendship quality, and psychological adjustment during the transition to college. The Journal of Experimental Education, 76(4), 343–361. https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.76.4.343-362

Yugo (2024). Make Best Friends For Life at University | Student Spill | Yugo. [online] Yugo 2024. 

Tomlinson, M. (2008). The degree is not enough: Students’ perceptions of the role of higher education credentials for graduate work and employability. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(1), 49–61.