Students beginning their first year of college hear certain questions over and over—what’s your major? What are you interested in studying? Any classes piquing your interest? Everyone wants to know about academic aspirations—until year two, that is. By sophomore year, these questions dramatically shift away from the likes of “what do you want to study,” and become “what do you want your professional career to look like?”

At just 19—before even earning a degree—college students are expected to be well-versed in networking, internship applications, recruiting, graduate school opportunities and salary data. If you’re not, consider yourself behind.

Students are no longer expected to just do well in classes and be involved in campus life. Rather, it’s been normalized to build a prominent professional identity off campus as well, and the earlier the better.

Instead of viewing college as a time for exploration and personal growth, students are facing increasing pressure to commit to career paths early while competing with their peers for prestigious opportunities. This is contributing to an unhealthy campus environment that distracts from the broader academic and personal development that college is meant to facilitate.

“My freshman year I had no idea what I wanted to major in, and I think that held me back because I felt like, why would I start looking for internships if I don’t even know what major I want to do or what field of work I want to go into,” said Skylar Rach ’29, an undergraduate at the Leavey School of Business.

For Rach, this pressure was complicated by seeing what her peers were doing.

“I knew I didn’t want to go into investment banking, but I kept hearing other friends go through the investment banking route, and they were already recruiting, and it made me feel like I was behind, even if I wasn’t doing that same track,” she said.

Rach is one of many college students feeling pressure to keep up with expectations about their professional experience, and struggling not to compare their own progress to that of their peers, often feeling like they’re falling behind if they are taking longer to choose a major or career path. This is unnecessary weight being placed on students who enter college believing they have time to explore their interests and figure out what they want to pursue.

This shift first began when college degrees became the bare minimum.

According to Harvard Business Review, employers began adding degree requirements to positions that had not previously required them in the early 2000s, with the trend accelerating after the recession in 2008-2009. This requirement normalized obtaining college degrees, making them less impressive to employers, while simultaneously causing real-world professional experience to become more appealing.

NACE’s Job Outlook 2026 report details how employers consider an internship with their organization or within their industry as the most influential factor when choosing between two otherwise equally qualified job candidates. Other attributes such as a GPA of 3.0 or higher, general work experience, leadership positions and involvement in extracurricular activities rank lower on the list of preferred qualities.

This is known as “The Experience Dilemma,” which can be associated with hiring slowdowns.

The U.S. Labor Department reported the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 20-24 as averaging 6.6% from May 2025 to May 2026, which is higher than the 4% national average. This is primarily driven by a “low hire, low fire” economy, meaning businesses have reduced entry-level positions by about 17% compared to pre-pandemic baselines and are ironically demanding three to five years of prior experience for these entry-level positions.

With an increasingly selective job market, prospective employees are bound to compete even more for early professional experience. This results in college students scrambling during their four years of school to gain any professional experience available, which can be a stressful and unrealistic expectation for the many students who don’t yet have a definitive career plan.

This constant pressure affects campus culture and environment in a multitude of negative ways.

First, it creates competition between students that is not necessarily academic-centered, but career-focused.

LinkedIn, a platform originally designed to connect professionals and help recruiters find candidates, has morphed into a space where college students compare their professional experiences. The act of scrolling through a feed of other’s achievements creates a competitive environment where students measure their own progress against their peers. This cycle of comparison sparks pressure to get ahead and achieve goals within an overly restrictive timeline.

Not only does this foster unhealthy habits, it also distracts students from focusing on their own personal growth and development.

This hyperfocus on resume-building often comes at the expense of clubs and social organizations that promote physical and mental well-being; professional development takes precedence over holistic development. Pressure to be a stand-out applicant consumes students’ time and energy, and without prioritizing their own well-being, it can lead to mental health strain and burnout.

A student’s self-worth can feel dependent on whether or not they got the job, rather than experiences or relationships outside of their professional lives. While it’s useful to work towards a goal, unrealistic standards are bound to have negative consequences on young adults in the long run. It can push them into careers they are not genuinely passionate about, stunt personal growth and add unnecessary stress to an already demanding academic environment.

Students with niche majors or minors are especially likely to face these issues. The validity of a major or area of study is often questioned by their peers if it is not seen as professionally lucrative. Being simply passionate about the subject is not enough; there have to be motives behind each choice made until graduation.

This summer, the U.S. Department of Education issued the STATS and Earning Accountability final rule—a strict accountability policy meant to cut off federal financial aid for low-earning college programs.

The American Enterprise Institute wrote that the IRS will essentially track median graduate earnings four years post-completion, and if a degree fails to clear the salary benchmark in two out of three consecutive years, it will lose access to the federal Direct Loan program. Policies like this create pressure to choose career-oriented degrees over ones students are actually interested in.

College should not be only focused on the future, it should also be about experiencing the present. Students deserve a healthy balance—a chance to develop professionally and personally without feeling burdened by the constant fear of failure.