Reader response:
In high school, I worked two jobs, took college coursework, participated in ten student organizations, held prominent leadership positions and earned a 4.0 GPA. I was rewarded with a scholarship to a top twenty university and had the whole world ahead of me. In college, I studied Business. I was active in campus groups, had multiple internships and held a 3.9 GPA. After seeing many of my older friends obtaining great jobs with signing bonuses and benefits, I decided to graduate 3 Semesters early. This was May 2008.
After graduation, I began applying for my dream jobs. I started to get some responses, and then the economy tanked. I tried to follow-up with those who had expressed interest. No response. I extended my search to other cities and states and could not even get a phone interview. I then began searching for less than ideal positions. Not a call back to even be a Secretary. So, I became a bartender.
Eventually, I took an unpaid internship in a field I never imagined working in. There I was, Miss 4.0 Honors Student, working for free with freshmen and sophomores in college. After a year of promises that the position would soon become a paid one, I decided to move on. Refusing to move back in with my parents, I picked up a second job. Then one day, I got a call. The company I had interned for had recommended me for a position with another firm. I couldn’t believe it. Summer of 2010, over two years after I had graduated from college, I finally had a real full-time job.
Only this job was nothing that I would have ever wanted to do. I am still here to this day, only because I know how difficult it will be to find another. I continuously read articles about unemployed recent graduates and lend a sympathetic ear to my job seeking friends. I feel as if I am wasting my life, sitting here at this desk, doing trivial work and browsing news articles all day. When people tell me that I am lucky for having a job, I want to cry. How can this mundane existence actually be envied?! I do have a roof over my head and health insurance, but my optimism about the work world has been severely damaged. I did not work this hard in order to obtain this outcome. Serving people drinks was more rewarding than what I do at my full-time job, and it is killing me inside.
It is terrible that so many of our nation’s top youth are going through the same struggles. Some say that we should not expect things to be handed to us, and that we should just stop whining. That may be the case for some, but what about those of us who never expected anything? There are thousands of us who worked hard and did everything that we were supposed to do. We were told, “If you push yourself and work harder than everyone else, you will succeed.” We did not create the problems our nation is facing today. We didn’t vote for the politicians, we didn’t borrow too much money, we didn’t buy things we couldn’t afford, and we didn’t build the hopes and dreams of an entire generation, only to have them come crashing down.
To those of you unemployed now, go find an internship. Freelance. Volunteer. Do anything to make connections. If you are still in college and are not trying to get multiple internships before you graduate, you are a moron. Does it suck that you have to work for free? Yeah, it sucks and it isn’t fair, but that is the only thing you can do right now.
Source: The Atlantic, Sep 2011
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