The Biggest Problem with Post-Grad
I am 23 years old. I have two degrees. What I don’t have is a full-time job. As of the day this is written (around 2 weeks after graduation), I have filled out over 20 job applications and have gotten 10 rejections. Each rejection letter, despite all of them being essentially the same wording, gets even harder to deal with. Will I find a job that pays a salary? Will I live at my parents’ house for the rest of my life working a minimum wage job? Will I be able to pay off my student loans? The questions surrounding my current life and my future keep building up with each day that I don’t have a job and it’s tough to deal with and I often feel like I am drowning in uncertainty. On top of all of that, I feel extremely isolated. Most of my friends either have a job, are pursuing graduate school, or are still working on their undergraduate degrees. I have exactly one friend in the same predicament that I am in and she has been my rock. The point is, I am in a serious post-grad rut to say the least. If I let myself sit at home on one of the days I don’t work and I let myself not do anything, my feelings only get worse.
Through many hours of thinking about my whole situation, I have come up with some solid problems with life after graduation. The first, and arguably hardest problem to deal with, is that school is all we know how to do. I had been in school for 17 years and before that, I was unable to spell my full name, so school truly is all I know how to do. I had jobs throughout college; my first job was when I was 18, but they were just jobs that I did for a summer or a semester or even an academic year, but they all had a sure cut off date. They were temporary. I’ve been fortunate and I’ve gone to schools that have tried to prepare us for the real world: I can balance a checkbook, I know how to do an interview, I know how to look for a job, I know how to dress for a job, and I know how to find places to live. That brings me to the second problem, it all seems so easy. No one can truly prepare you for the real world and all that comes with it...it’s impossible. It seems so easy to just find a job, interview, and get the job and move on with life. Wow is that not the way it works at all. Sitting at graduation, I saw how many people were graduating from my college within my university alone. It was a lot...and we’re all looking for jobs (or rather, most of us anyways). Sure, we all have different aspirations, but we all have the same pool of entry-level jobs to choose from. Hundreds of thousands of newly-graduated college students looking in that very small pool of jobs they might maybe possibly hopefully qualify for. That brings me to my third and final big problem, isolation. Despite there being so many newly-graduated college students in the exact same situation I’m in, I feel incredibly isolated. I have to do my search alone. I have to figure out how to do this stuff for myself. I can ask my parents and friends for advice, but at the end of the day, this is my future and most of the work is on me. Welcome to the adult world. It waits for no one.
Now for the best part: combatting these feelings.
For the first week after graduation, I slept. I slept all day every day and now not only do I not have a sleep schedule, but now all I want to do is keep sleeping. Don’t get me wrong, I deserved sleep after five very long years of sleepless nights (for both fun and not so fun reasons...I mean it was college). Nap time is, unfortunately, over (jk I still nap, but my point is I can’t sleep all day anymore).
Step 1: Stay productive
Staying productive is the major key here. I’ve spent the past 17 years of my life being a busy bee and I love it because I feel useful and I feel like I’m doing something with my life. Even though my work right now is part-time and pays minimum wage, it is something that I love doing because it’s something to do. When I’m not at work, I’ve started reading again (this time finally with some books I actually want to read) with helpful suggestions from my new goodreads account, I exercise not only for physical, but also mental health reasons, and I started this blog. If you lay in bed all day, your post-grad depression will only get worse. Find (healthy) activities that make you happy and do them even if you don’t really feel like getting out of bed because you won’t regret doing them but you will regret spending a lifetime in bed.
Step 2: Keep up the search
I would be a liar if I said I didn’t get discouraged at some point on a daily basis. Rejection is apparently part of life and oh boy have I been rejected a lot in the past two weeks, but I have to keep going so that I do eventually get a job. I have to shove out all the worries about being rejected again, not being good at a job, and whatever else and just keep going.
Step 3: The power of positive thinking
Pinterest boards. Lots and lots of pinterest boards. I truly love motivational posters and fun sayings. I save my favorites on my phone and I have my own board of motivation and inspiration to refocus my mind on the positive. I know my situation is temporary and sometimes I have to literally search for motivation to keep going so that my situation is actually temporary. I have to remind myself that for my situation to be temporary, I have to keep going. These little things also remind me that my life is not that bad. I have a family and a huge support network of people who love me and want to help me, I have a roof over my head, insurance, a working form of transportation, and a phone as well as cable and internet….all paid for, and I have an income even if it is small.
tl;dr: Post-grad sucks, I feel bad for myself, but it’s all temporary if you can find the motivation to make it temporary.
Also this song has been super super helpful and I’ve been playing it on repeat.