Your future is more than just a résumé
“So, what are you going to do after graduation?”
Regardless of your major, year or circumstances, we have all heard some variation of this question. It doesn’t matter if you’re a freshman or a second-semester senior, it’s the question that reveals itself again and again during our time here. Both business and liberal arts majors can attest to the following: the pressure to succeed, find a job and establish yourself in the professional world is always right around the corner. And if someone asks us these nine little words, they can shake us to our very core and trigger a fear of failure.
Circumstances are part of what have driven us to be so future-oriented. In 2013, the year the current senior class first entered Saint Joseph’s University, the market was looking a little bleak. An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report released in April 2013 portrayed a realistic picture of the economy for young people, prefacing the report by explaining the impact of the Great Recession of 2007. “At 16.2 percent, the March 2013 unemployment rate of workers under age 25 was slightly over twice as high as the national average.”
A CNN money article, written by Annalyn Kurtz, on the EPI report, stated that full-time working young people who have their college degrees, “are now making about $3,200 less each year than they were in 2000, after adjusting for inflation.” This kind of environment was influential to students who, by April of 2013, were preparing for finals of their freshman year. But the impact stretches back even farther than that.
The past 50 years alone have considerably altered the way America and working families perceived college. Earning an undergraduate degree has become a prerequisite for many who wish to work their way into the professional world. St. Joe’s recently hosted prospective students on Admitted Students Day on April 1 and 2; if you looked closely enough, you could see the ambition and hunger in many parents’ eyes to give their children a future filled with potential. Unfortunately, the pressure doesn’t cease to exist once you are accepted.
During their time on Hawk Hill, many students hope to craft a pristine résumé, find the perfect internship and eventually land a great job offer. But we often set such unrealistic expectations for ourselves too soon. There are moments that we even find ourselves looking across the classroom, at our own peers and friends and sizing up the competition. “What are they doing this summer?” “Am I good enough?” Questions like these can make us feel one step behind, and ultimately viewing the world as adversarial, rather than as a full of opportunities to grow.
Often, the drive for a career translates to internship stress. Internships provide an opportunity to explore a field in which you have an interest. However, the stress to find the perfect one and do well can be overwhelming. Even if you do manage to find employment, you second-guess how “perfect” it truly is. The prestige of your internship isn’t the defining factor of your success though.
Just because you didn’t get the exact position for which you were hoping, doesn’t mean you are somehow unqualified for any other job. You may fear that you won’t get your dream job anymore, but your future consists more of how you react to your circumstances and how you apply your experiences in the future rather than a single internship. Additionally, if the burden of commuting or loans outweighs the benefits of the internship, then there’s nothing wrong with searching for a different opportunity. Life has its fair share of practicalities that should not, and cannot, be ignored.
Not everything you do should just be a résumé builder. Your life isn’t only the piece of paper that you present to potential employers. That would be oversimplifying our value as experiences to check off a list. Don’t let the fear of the job market or competition control your decisions. Take the risks and spend time on what you actually enjoy. Tackle your future more realistically by acknowledging your need to create our own journey. There may be some missteps or obstacles, but each and every opportunity you choose to take part in will strengthen your vision for the future.
Studying a major, joining a club and making a legacy here on Hawk Hill shouldn’t all be future-oriented.
Realistically speaking, this idea of letting go of our futures is youthful and beautiful, but some of us don’t have the luxury. Life after graduation isn’t a straightforward process, and the job market isn’t necessarily going to be as warm and welcoming as Hawk Hill. Not everyone is going to have the privilege of an optimistic mindset and an open future. But we do all share an education and a chance to gain a good one. Come graduation day, we will have earned enough credits to call ourselves St. Joe’s Alumni. It’s powerful enough to set the world on fire. If we can do that, then we can at the very least find a job.
So what now? We want answers, security and assurance from the future we haven’t lived yet. But the solutions remain ambiguous. We put in the time, we study, we work and at the end of the day that has to be enough. If we can, let’s make memories that don’t simply add to a résumé. If we know that we have put forth the energy and time into our future, then, in the long term, we should achieve what we hope to. In the meantime, the best we can do to separate ourselves from the stress of the future and understand that our lives will, and do, consists of more than our GPA and cover letters.
