It can be super hard to think beyond the confines of the university walls. Assignments, tutes and social gatherings cloud your mind so much that the concept of your future can be vague at best and straight up daunting at worst.

As somebody who’s done and dusted with university, I can tell you with absolute certainty that there are things that won’t matter one bit once you’ve received that degree.

Here are just a few.

Every Assignment You Completed

So all those hours of trawling through books to find one measly reference means nothing? Unfortunately, most likely yes.

We’re not saying that your degree means absolutely nothing, we’re saying once you get into the real world you’ll find there are things that matter more than what assignments you completed. For example, how punctual you are, how well you can work with other team members, how brave you are in chasing up opportunities even if it means looking ‘too keen’.

Your degree gets you in the door but what value you bring as a person keeps the job yours.

Your Social Status On Campus

Good news if you were the loner in the library reading books to get through your spare time like me. Bad news if you were the king or queen of campus.

Once you finish university, you start anew. Employers and companies never ask you what kind of a person you were in your philosophy tutorial, or how well formed your arguments were in class debates.

While the hangover of ‘you’ from high school still lingers around during the first year of university, consider yourself a blank slate once you receive that degree.

Seeing Your Friends All The Time

Growing apart is inevitable no matter how hard we fight it. Best friends will move away, good friends will become once a month dates and average friends will be completely forgotten.

Post-university, everyone starts to become more self involved as they realise how bloody difficult it is to get a break in the real world. Forget getting a great job, even scoring an average job can be back breaking and time consuming.

Relationships and friendships alike are relegated to the sideline, not because we don’t value them, but because we don’t have the time for them that we used to. And that’s OK.

The Fear Of Being Rejected

Rejections start off feeling personal and painful but post-university, we guarantee you’ll give them about a nanosecond of thought before moving onto the next opportunity.

The more you put yourself and your work out there, the more you get used to the rejections come your way.

You also realise that ‘No’ doesn’t mean you’re a bad person and your work is subpar. It’s more like the timing is off, or you’re not a culture fit for the company.

Rejections never come easy but your care factor goes down significantly the more you receive them.

Exactly How Your Career Will Pan Out

We all have an ‘idea’ of what our post-university life will look like, but rarely does it go according to plan. And you know what? That’s fine. Because we need to bend over backwards to get from one point to another and that process takes time.

We promise that what you end up getting is going to be way better than you could have imagined.

Yalei Wang is a writer based in Melbourne.