What the Hell Do I Do Now?
Graduation ceremonies, navigating a new era, and desperately trying to NOT panic.
Graduating college is fun—or, at least, the act in itself is fun.
Walking across the stage in your rented gown and meticulously decorated cap, shaking hands with important people you’ve never met before, and posing with an empty diploma cover. You get your “15 Minutes of Fame” in thirty seconds, and the recognition seems slim in comparison to all you’ve accomplished in the past four years. You don’t dwell on it, though, because this is the most excitement you’ve felt in the past twenty-odd years of your life. Not even the reminder of how much time, money, and energy you’ve thrown into this degree can bring you down.
(The actual work that went into graduating is another story—one that heavily involves the aforementioned time, money, and energy—but let’s not worry about that.)
Back at graduation, as you wait in line to enter the arena, you’re surrounded by people like yourself. You’re just one in a sea of black fabric, and the room buzzes with anticipation as soon-to-be graduates await their fate. One points out your cap’s decorations, and you have a flashback to hunched over shoulders at your parent’s kitchen table with only a roll of glue dots, whatever you could find at Michaels, and a dream. This random graduate seems to like it, so your mom and sister must not have been lying when they said it turned out nice.
The cap sparks the beginning of a conversation, and there’s a lot of Oh, what did you study? That’s so cool! I thought about that but decided to focus on this instead. Yeah, it seemed like a better fit. What do you hope to get into after this?
And then time stops.
You’re no longer on your way to the arena. No longer anticipating the walk across the stage where you’ll smile, squint against the fluorescent lights, and try to silence your brain as it chants don’t trip don’t trip on a loop. Instead, you feel yourself being thrown back into a chair, and there’s a kind-faced woman across from you typing away at a computer. It’s a cramped office, and the large desk positioned between the two of you only makes it stuffier.
“So, what degree were you hoping to pursue?” The woman draws her attention away from the computer screen. You don’t remember her name—the name plate’s etching having been lost to time in your memories—but you know that she’s an advisor helping you with your transition to a new college. You turn to your mom beside you, and it’s reminiscent of the times you would go to the doctor as a child and not know how to explain your symptoms.
You didn’t have a concrete answer then, and as it turns out, after two and a half more years of classes, you’re still left grasping at straws.
What the hell do I do now?
These past four years were dedicated to reaching this exact moment. With every submit button, you had a flash of stage lights flicker behind your eyes and felt the weight of a freshly steamed gown on your shoulders. This was the final destination, the moment to roll the credits and close the curtains, but this is real life—your life—and it’s not like the movies. Everything doesn’t come to a halt at the end of your academic career.
So, you start navigating this new era of life. You move back to your hometown to live in a pricey two-bedroom apartment with your sister, and you relish in the domesticity of running errands and cooking dinner together. You start the process of looking for a job too, figuring out what you can do with this shiny degree, and start sending out applications from the comfort of your new couch. All-in-all, life is pretty good.
And then a month goes by, and you haven’t heard back from any of those applications. So, you simplify your search terms and expand the miles you’re willing to commute. You understand that you’re not going to find your dream job right away, and you’re willing to make sacrifices to get your foot in the door. You dedicate time to working on your own projects too, and you enjoy having the freedom to do that.
But another month passes, and you’ve received a total of one rejection while all the other applications are completely ignored. This total disregard from the companies you’re applying to starts to annoy you, and you wonder how unqualified you were for them to just shrug you off. Your resume explains how you just graduated college and you’re applying for entry-level positions. They shouldn’t expect five-plus years of experience, right?
Another month slips away… and another… and another. You can count the number of rejections you’ve received on one hand, but the pile of applications continues to grow, threatening to topple over. Your annoyance turns into frustration, and the frustration changes to desperation. You’re drowning in applications and no one’s throwing you a lifeline.
And then another month passes, and the desperation morphs into panic because this is supposed to be something exciting. You graduated college! It’s an incredible achievement, but instead, you’re crying on the phone with your mom and she’s telling you these things take time and you gotta be patient, but you can’t shut off that voice in the back of your head feeding off your self-doubt, shouting Failure! Failure! Failure! And what if it’s true? What if all that hard work you put into getting your degree was for nothing?
It’s been seven months and you still haven’t even landed an interview and every job description is asking for experience but how are you supposed to gain experience if no one is even giving you a chance? So, you keep altering your keyword search until it’s barely recognizable from what you initially started with, and you can feel that helplessness creep in because this is your new reality and it’s scary and unpredictable and now “you” is actually “me” and this is no longer a hypothetical but my actual life and oh my god, what the hell do I do now?
My mom keeps telling me to take it one day at a time. The internet tells me that it’s nearly impossible to find a job nowadays. (No kidding.) My friends tell me to just keep my head up. Random adults remind me that not everything happens overnight.
As for me, I still have no idea what’s going on. I adopted a fake it ‘till you make it mentality months ago, and that seems to be working for the time being. I’m hoping that the creation of this series—the whole process of thinking things through and sorting out my feelings—will act as my own personal enlightenment on what to do next.
Worst case scenario, I get to vent about my problems and build up my portfolio. Two birds. One stone.