<p>...at the sight of that question? I don't even know what the hell I see myself doing two years from now. </p>
<p>Anybody else an incredibly directionless junior/senior?</p>
<p>Heh. This question dogs almost every human being on the planet, not just college juniors/seniors. I am 50 years old, and it makes me sweat, too. 
Just saying, get used to it!</p>
<p>I know. It drives me insane having such uncertainty. I remember a middle aged man once told me that at one of his college reunions at Stanford University, one of his friends confided to him his despair at the meaninglessness of his life saying that he doesn’t want to die having lived his life as someone else’s employee (I think the friend was in business or something). I’m not sure what the answer is but maybe if we choose a life path that we think (to the best of our capacities) is the right way, at least we can tell ourselves at the end of the road that we tried our best and that’s that.</p>
<p>then why do interviewers ask this useless question?</p>
<p>Because they secretly want to know the answer.</p>
<p>Not really. Doesn’t bother me much at all. I plan on being wherever I am. I have no particular ambitions (other than to work somewhere that I’ll have to wear business clothes less than 10% of the year) and I’m kind of a happy panda wherever. I’ll have my SO by my side if all goes well and a pit bull sitting next to me on a couch. The rest is gravy. </p>
<p>For interviewers, I can tell them my ambitions for me in their company/school. That’s easy. If I didn’t have any, I wouldn’t be there.</p>
<p>Well, graduate school. Where? I can’t say. Wherever and whoever takes me for the PhD program. I could always stay at my university and do a master’s before going that route. I’ll probably be married before I start graduate school. </p>
<p>I’ll be a physicist in some form or fashion, whether in academia or industry. Maybe I’ll have a beagle named Chip. Everything somehow in my life is directing me down this path of becoming a physicist and I find myself going to physics seminars, talking to physics teachers, doing physics (even though I’m a math major) in my spare time, dreaming about physics, checking out books about physics, and talking physics with engineers who want to be physicists but won’t because engineering is more secure financially. Hell, the reason I’m in math is because I fell in love with science through a physicist that has a huge poster of himself on my wall and all of his books on my bookshelves. </p>
<p>Girlfriend/future wife will be in graduate school as well. Financially, I’ll find a way to make it work. Just because I’ll have a PhD in hand doesn’t mean I won’t take a job that is “beneath me”. My plan and hope is to do research and teach at a university. I’d work in industry too or for the government.</p>
<p>It’s particularly hard to answer this question in a job interview when your real ambition is grad school. haha… In that case, I’ll just have to give’em the run around, because the other option would be a ridiculous lie. “YES, I would absolutely love to manage operators twice my age, in a plant in the middle of nowhere, living in a crappy little town of 7000 people!”</p>
<p>I know exactly what I want to do in life.</p>
<p>Okay, so maybe I’ve only narrowed it down to 20 or 30 things.</p>
<p>I’ve woken up from nightmares about this very topic. </p>
<p>Stressed? Absolutely.</p>
<p>But I have confidence that it will all work out for the best:)</p>
<p>I want to be some kind of biotech/software entrepreneur, but I realize that’s not really a plan. I only wish it were more than a pipe dream. </p>
<p>So, in other words, I’m screwed.</p>
<p>biotech field sounds like computer science or something. You could do a lot of things with that–work for Microsoft, work in IT, or program computer games! That would be cool; you could help make Call of Duty 45</p>
<p>Just have some quippy response prepared, it doesn’t have to be 100% accurate. As long as it’s roughly in the ballpark of what you think you want so you’re genuine. I hated that question too so I never ask it myself.</p>
<p>I have no clue where I’m going, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. I’m just doing me and trying not to go insane (currently failing at the moment)</p>
<p>I don’t think most people know where they’re going to be in 5 years. Just live in the moment and do the best you can!</p>
<p>It may be that this question is more useful in terms of ruling out people who give bizarre answers than it is for anything else. (For example, you might find someone admitting that they’re only going to college to meet a husband or something who might answer something like “I hope to be married and hanging up curtains in my house.”)</p>
<p>I had definitely knew exactly where I saw myself in 5 yrs back when I was 17 yrs old. Of course, when I was 22 yrs old, I was no where near where I saw myself at 17 yrs old.</p>
<p>Just make something up that sounds good and let it go. I am 42 now and have no clue where I will be at 47. I will see where life takes me. Hopefully, it will be good. Life is a journey. And excessive planning ruins lives. When the plans do not work out, many people do a tail spin and feel less satisfied with life. I think it is good to have a general direction, but be open to changes and go with the surprises life throws at you.</p>
<p>But for a college interview, I just tell my children to say stuff like graduated and employed type answers…or going to grad school…stuff like that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wow … I’ve been very surprised by most of the answers in this thread. As an alumni interviewer for my school I really like this question. On CC there are about 1000 threads complaining about holistic admissions and essentially advocating for some form of quantitative admissions based on GPAs and SATs. As an interviewer well over 75% of the applicants were very qualified for the school and lining the applicants by the numbers would have been just about the worst way to rank the applicants. In my experience, the applicants with “it” typically had a strong an energetic answer to a question about where they would be in 5 years. I did not say they knew exactly where they want to be but they had strong feelings about next steps, the direction in which they are headed, a couple possibilities, or some passionate statement of what’s next. To be honest when I read a student say they have no idea how to answer this question I think they probably are not one of students top school want to pull out of the huge pile of qualified students.</p>
<p>Guarantee 70% of those students end up not doing whatever it is they say they’ll be doing five years from now.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>you are not addressing what the students will be ACTUALLY be doing in 5 years; you are addressing whether or not they can speak with confidence and conviction. They are two totally different things. If I were a good liar, I would say whatever it is that you want to hear in a good applicant. But the truth is people’s lives are boring; they just want a job, or they just want to be happy. Sure, some people today had a 5 year plan, and are living it, but most people who had those plans probably reflect upon those plans as naive and uninformed. Then again, only a dimwit would truly admit that in a formal interview. It’s all about how you present yourself, not about who you actually are. That’s why I think most of these interview questions are dumb. You’re talking to new college graduates, not people who have 5+ years experience in the field. Ask the questions that are commensurate to our level of experiences!</p>