We are two weeks away from graduation. I’d say the real world is knocking on the door, but at this point I feel more like the first little pig in his house of hay, and the world is huffing and puffing. For those of us who don’t yet have a job, the stress of finding one has kicked in, hard – almost as hard as Christian Grey has sex.
What’s the next step for us seniors, you ask? Good question. Some of the members of our class have job offers or are off to grad school (congratulations, you make us proud). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most of us are still trying to figure something out.
If I get asked one more time what I’m doing this summer or after graduation, I might punch someone in the face. My hatred for this question is so blatant that during a Spanish class, my teacher asked everyone in it but me, stating that, “She knows how much this question irritates me.”
I have absolutely no idea what I’ll be doing this summer, let alone with my life. I don’t even know which country I will call home in two weeks. And while that and other things such as grades and finding a job are absolutely despairing, I find comfort in the fact I have around 400 other anguished seniors who are still trying to find their footing.
In my desperate attempts to find a job, I sent applications almost around the clock. I’m an addict. I’ve been selling myself for the past four months. Sending resumes, cover letters, doing Skype interviews, phone interviews, regular interviews, you name it. Last week, I came to the conclusion that I was damn tired of selling myself – I was ready to take this body off the streets.
So I took a break from applying. Yet, I realized very quickly that it was a bad idea, and I fell off the wagon. I’m once again a victim of the likes of websites such as Indeed.com, where they feed you hundreds of job prospects, all of which require at least 1-2 years of experience despite being called entry level jobs. However, that’s a whole different can of worms – I’m not tackling that subject right now, as I am pressed for time. I need to apply for some more jobs.
I’d like to reminisce to high school. No, not the fond memories of our athletic peaks (for most of us, this is undeniably true, sorry y’all), but to graduation memories. Remember how hard it was to leave your high school, your friends, people you’ve known for a large part of your life? Yeah well multiply that by googol (that’s a 10 with 100 zeros behind it for non-science/math majors).
While Delaware and Ohio Wesleyan are a home to many of us, they are not our hometowns. I can go back every summer to Rio and see most of my friends. However, it’s a little trickier to find all of my OWU friends – we don’t all have a place in common besides this school, and our time here is over. That’s what makes this so hard.
I have made friends, connections, and memories that I will never forget. Take comfort in your fellow senior classmates’ struggles, share, bond, hang out, laugh, cry, whatever floats your boat. We can only walk this plank for two more weeks before we fall into the sea that is the real world – make ‘em count.