Post Grad

Once upon a time I dreamed of the big city, an amazingly glamorous job, and a closet full of expensive shoes. 

What was the key to the good life in all these dreams? College. Get into college, go to college, graduate college and then it would all be mine.

So that’s what I did. A million essays and scholarship applications, working hard to get good grade in high school, all to get into college and be able to pay for it myself, so that one day I can have the kind of life I always dreamed of.

The next four years were again full of “putting in the work” to be able to graduate and live the life. I choose my major, Music Industry Management, because music is my passion, but I wanted to actually have a career. In the beginning the Music Industry seemed like the perfect fit for this glamorous single-girl life I wanted to live in the city.

I studied. I joined organizations. I became an RA and then a DSM to help pay for school. I did internships (while aquiring even more loan debt!) because that’s what you needed to do to be successful.

And I was good at it. I was good at being a student. I was good at making friends. I was good at impressing my employers. 

I worked my ass off at both internships, because I wanted to be the best intern they ever had. I got fabulous reviews, even better recommendations.

Then graduation came. I wasn’t worried. I did everything I was suppose to do, and I did it well. Everyone, including me, thought I would have no problem getting a job. I had so much great experience, so many connections.

My dream was going to come true…

Then I graduated… started an internship… finished that internship…

and no job came.  and then I moved home. 

I don’t have parents who can financially support me at 23, so I had to take a job, any job.

I tried applying for jobs for three months. Career jobs, minimum wage jobs at retail stores, jobs as a bank teller, jobs in restaurants. No one would hire me.

This is where I started realizing that maybe life really isn’t a fairytale…even when you work really really hard and go to college where everyone says the key to happiness is. This thought crossed my mind when I started working at a party store on weekends making minimum wage with a Bachelor’s degree and $20,000 in student loan debt.

I couldn’t even afford payless shoes, or my bills.

Then I finally got a phone call for a full time job that made $2 dollars over minimum wage… working midnights. At a group home for the developmentally disabled. I was stoked….it was a job!

Yes, I was living the Post Grad dream. Underemployed, overworked, in debt and depressed. 

and that’s where this post stops, and another must begin.