post college anguish

"Don't go to college! Look, if you don't know something, Google it!" -SNL

Advice seems to come from all angles when you're fixated on one topic. I tend to have "Life Topics" and "Daily Themes." I haven't had a Daily Theme in a while- but the Life Topic right now is very clear: JOBS.

Since graduating from college with a BA in Anthropology/Sociology I've been feeling a lot like Buster from Arrested Development. Buster is Michael's younger brother that is constantly in school and getting degrees in things that are useless. Examples given on the show include Archeology, Cartography, and doing studies to see how long people can be awake. Although he is very highly educated, he is portrayed in the show as being generally useless and childlike with no actual life skills.

Like Buster, my life seems to be seriously lacking right now. I've been surfing every job site on the internet every day for at least 2-3 hours if not more. I know every recycling-related job available in the country that has been advertised online. When I find a job that could be meaningful work for me, I apply and wait. It is so frustrating to put so much effort into the application process and rarely if ever hear back from employers. I had no idea how rude and fickle employers could be and ARE. No one tells you that at the career counselor's office. And I certainly don't have head-hunters beating down my door, cute Warren Wilson. Some days I do regret my major, but like I told a friend the other day, if I had majored in Environmental Science or something like that I would have been sad, confused, and my GPA would be too.

I think a lot of this anguish I have has a lot to do with the cultural requirement for some families to send their children to college before their children know what they want to do. The private college-prep high school I went to herded us all to college with a feverish enthusiasm to boost their own credentials while many of us were left bewildered- though we understood that this was the "correct" step after high school. I do understand that many people do discover what they like to do once they are in college and I also understand college for the sake of college. I just wonder how different things would have been had I taken that year off after High School. Would I be in my house eating Honey Bunches of Oats out of the box writing a blog about how grouchy I am that I'm still in South Carolina? I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do now (cute Warren Wilson!) but the frustration at some of my peers already getting to start their post-college lives makes me scared and jealous.

To add to this Life Topic, the unemployment rate hit 5.5% this week, the highest it's been since 1986 (the year I was born). Thanks guys! Thank you, George.

So to assuage my sour mood and maybe spark some interest in someone else, here is One Day One Job, a cool college grad site that has some pretty good articles about finding a job, using RSS feeds to help your search (I use bloglines), and other stuff.