Ugh Graduation

Graduation is supposed to be this magical time.  You've worked for four years of your life that you will never get back.  Your friends were out partying while you were inside learning the ins and outs of annuities and the probability of picking an orange ball out of an urn when the urn is set on fire and you don't have fingers anymore.  And then, you finally graduate.  You have your cap and gown and your thousands of dollars worth of debt that will take you half a lifetime to pay back.  You look at your graduation garb not with joy or pride, but with anxiety.  In these past four years, you knew where you'd end up at the end of the summer.  You'd have a summer job or you'd be at the beach, and no matter what you'd end up back in your dorm or apartment in the fall ready for another grueling year filled with finals and finance woes.  But not now.  Now that you have your cap and gown, you have no idea where you'll end up.  If you're anything like me, you don't have a job offer yet.  Everyone tells you not to worry, that you'll get a job eventually, but you can't wait until eventually.  You want your life to start now!  Like me, you may have left a job to go to school to get a better job, but now you're graduating without even the hopeful prospect of procuring employment prior to moving back in with your parents and their strict rules.  Life isn't peaches and roses like you think it is, and yet no one understands how you don't have a job.

A few weeks ago, I was riding the city bus to get to my on campus job when this man asked if I went to school here.  I said yes and answered his questions about when I'm graduating and what my major is.  Then came the dreaded question: "So where will you be working in May?"  How do I answer that?  I could say, "I didn't come to college to get a job, I came here to party for four years and live off my parents' dime."  But that would be a bold faced lie.  I could answer, "I'm not sure yet, I'm keeping my options open," but that wouldn't be the entire truth either.  I responded as honestly as possible, "I don't have a job offer yet, but I have one prospect that I'm hoping turns into something."  He didn't even let me finish!  After saying I didn't have a job, he yelped, "Well why not?!"  It took all I had not to scream, "I don't know!!"  I've worked on my resume, I've been to the career fair, I've sent my resume to every place I could think of and then five more places.  I've interviewed, sent thank you notes, and spent countless torturous hours waiting for that phone call to either accept or reject me.  It becomes personal.  "We don't want you because you suck and we only take people who don't remind us of those awful dull students we went through college with."  Or maybe, "No one would want to hire you, you aren't qualified or smart or well prepared, why would we waste our time on you?"  But come on people!  I have more drive than the average bear!  I may not be AS qualified as other students because I changed majors two years ago, but in two years I fit in four years worth of curriculum AND worked the whole time.  With my parents unable to financially support me more than giving me $20 for gas once, I have worked every day since I was 16 to put myself through school.  Does that not show an enthusiasm?  Does it not show that I'm dedicated to do whatever it takes to get the job done?  Am I dull?  Possibly, but only because I don't want to joke about farts and burps at a professional interview!!

So now that the dreaded graduation day is coming up in less than a month (24 days in my case), what's a girl to do?  Resign herself to failure?  Never show her face in public again?  I feel like without a job, everyone I worked with back home will be thinking of me as a failure.  In their eyes, I wasted four years and thousands of dollars while they lived on in that small town, providing for their families, getting married, and having babies (which by the looks of friends' facebook pages, a baby is just as popular as a birkin bag).  And you can't talk to anyone about it!  That's the problem!  You get one of two responses.  1) You'll get a job, you just have to look harder. 2) Don't bring up graduation! I'm not ready!!  But I am one of the lucky ones who gets a third response from the one woman who should be more supportive (I'm looking at you, Mom).

My mother means well, but she is stressing me out!  Here are a list of some of the questions I hear from her on multiple occasions, as if she's forgotten that she's already crushed my ego with the exact same question two days ago:

1. What if you don't get a job?
2. Are you just going to be a cashier when you graduate?
3. How are you going to pay back your loans?
4. Don't all of your other friends already have jobs?
5. I thought you said you were getting into a good field?
6. What am I supposed to say to my friends when they ask where you're working?
7. Do you think you should have chosen a different major?
8. Why didn't you send out more resumes?
9. Why do you think everyone else is getting hired and you aren't?
10. Are you stressed about not making anything out of your college education?

AAAAAARGH!!  To be fair, nothing anybody could say would make me feel any less stressed.  In fact, the "you'll get a job" is just as frustrating as "what are you doing after graduation?"  Stop having faith in me, people!!  I just want to vent to someone and for them to say, "Yeah, it sucks.  This whole situation is a shit storm.  I'm sorry you have to deal with it.  Here's a taco."


...


I just want a hammock.