Eye on the Prize

So it’s after Spring Break. All of the party, questionable decisions, sunburns and the majority of our savings are all a week behind us. Now it’s time to buckle down. Time to sit and make about a thousand different lists of things you need to do for each class, for graduation preparation, for your current work, and for job hunting. Everything is so close you can taste it, but not close enough that you are worry free. There is still room for error. Something could go terribly terribly wrong and put all of your plans at a stand still for another semester, allowing your mind to go through all of this hellish stress over again in six months.

That said, get it together seniors! Just a few more weeks and we will have degrees, something that no one can ever take away from us. It’s the gateway to the rest of our lives. Every big thing that happens to us passed this point, excluding the possibility of marriage and children, will have something to do with this degree, this accomplishment.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. All we have to do is hammer all of this stuff out now that we don’t want to do, so that we can be free to do what we want for awhile after graduation. After this it’s all a choice. Grad school- choice. Work force- choice. Travel- choice. Sitting on your mom’s house stuffing your face with Little Debbies and binge watching Netflix- choice. But for now… it’s Operation Graduation in full force. So, here’s to it!

 

20 Thoughts We Have While Job Hunting

Looking for a grown-up job is as scary as it is exciting. In a perfect world, you start by handing your resume to some influential hands, hoping for an “in” to the company of your dreams. If that isn’t an option, you spend hours scouring job listings from different sites and perfecting your LinkedIn profile in hopes of the right someone stumbling upon your greatness. You go over your resume with a fine-toothed comb and even send it to a few of your superiors and professors for an honest opinion. When everything is as perfect as you think you can make it, you start sending out the paper version of you to as many job listings as you can, in hopes of getting one of the hundreds you may apply for. It’s like deciding what you want to eat and realizing there’s nothing in the house. You go to the refrigerator with one idea in mind, it’s not there. You go to the pantry with a different idea, it’s not there– return to the refrigerator with  lower standards. Not to say that you should lower your standards in life, but for your first job after college, we don’t have the luxury of being so picky. So, here’s to the hunt, and 20 thoughts we have while perusing through the job ads:

1. I can’t tell if my resume is really good, or really bad.

2. This is totally a fake listing… whatever I’ll apply anyway.

3. Oh my god. This is perfect. This is the job for me. If I don’t get this I’ll die.

4. LOL at that salary. Absolutely not.

5. Hmm, that seems like the most boring job I’ve ever heard of… I could do it for $50K though. In goes my resume.

6. I’ve read so many postings, I may be going cross-eyed.

7. Paid relocation to Orlando, Florida? Well just twist my arm….

8. Paid relocation to Madison, Wisconsin? HA, moving on.

9. Requires 2-5 years experience. Hmm. I’ll just win them over with my charm. Hopefully I’m feeling charming that day.

10. “Please submit a video resume.” Ugghhhh. Fine. Just let me just make myself look presentable from the waste up real quick.

11. **Remembers raunchy Facebook post from 3 years ago** Crap. Crap. Must go delete before they realize how immature I’m capable of being.

12. Maybe I should just make my Facebook private.

13. How long have I been sitting here? Must be going on three hours.

14. I feel productive.

15. I’m going to look at apartments I could afford when I get my new job.

16. I’ll have the perfect house, and job. I’ll need a hobby. Maybe a dog.

17. Crap. Back on track. Let’s check out a different site.

18. These are all the same postings as the other site.

19. Oh well, two applications is better than none..

20. I really hope I’m not jobless come graduation. I’ll take anything really. **Prays to the job-giving gods**

Senior Stress vs. Regular Stress

Let’s just begin by breaking these two down:

Regular Stress: Stress the average human has to deal with. Examples include work, school, traffic, relationships, etc. Things that add stress on any typical day.

And the latter, Senior Stress: the enormously important, yet extremely tedious and seemingly impossible task of actually graduating on time, and everything that goes with that. So you take all of the regular stresses, and then you add on the definitive element of “If I mess this up, I’m not graduating”. We must turn everything in, we cannot skip classes, we cannot do bad on anything, because ultimately, we cannot fail ANY of our classes, or we WILL be screwed into staying in this earthly hell yet another semester, equating out to another seven months after the spring term ends.

But to put a bow on an already perfect package of stress and anxiety, let’s now add another piece to the puzzle:

It’s the question we, as seniors, dread more than anything else and avoid talking about at all costs, but seem to be asked on a weekly basis, “So, what are you going to do after graduation?” The person asking is always annoyingly bright-eyed and full of decent intentions, curious about your life. Some us have respectable answers, some of us are just trying to get to graduation day without any discrepancies, some of us aren’t emotionally ready to graduate at all.

But let’s say we are, indeed, thinking that far ahead, because let’s be honest: we are forced to. You want to go to grad school? Better have taken that GRE by now, or you better count your lucky stars you can take it by the end of the month and your schools will accept late scores. Tack on the hunt for at least two, decent letters of recommendation, and the money for the application. And after it’s all said and done, and you’ve sent the best version of yourself on paper to a couple of different schools, that’s just for the CHANCE to get an interview for the graduate program. You could do all of that work applying for the graduate program of your dreams, for the heads of the program to sit at their round table laughing at the entirety of your college career and slide your application in the nearest trash can, moving onto the next sorry candidate. Just take a moment to digest that.

I digress.

On the other hand, and I have to say it’s the hand I’m falling into right now, I need a break from school. I’m going to go straight into the workforce after graduation and a two month life-hiatus to ease my mind. But plunging into the workforce is another task in itself, sort of similar to graduate school also. You want to have a job for after you graduate? You better have been networking since your sophomore year of college. You better have had a few internships and some solid work to show for it, on top of your serving job (or of the like) where you actually make your money. You have to have a plan. What company, which position, and why? And don’t even think just because you have that fancy undergraduate degree that you’re guaranteed your 50K salary with paid vacation and sick days. Pump the breaks sparky, we appreciate the enthusiasm, but you’ll be lucky to get an entry level job paper pushing and licking envelopes, barely making more than what you would make if you had no degree. And if you lick enough envelopes, you could get a promotion in the next two years.

Outside of the growing-larger-by-the-minute To Do List, we have the added pressures of not disappointing those that are rooting for us. Our parents, proud and hopeful as we are about to enter the next phase of our lives. Our siblings, looking to us for an example, and giving them something to look forward to and work towards. And our friends, who are just as excited for us to graduate so we can deal with all the pains of adulthood simultaneously.

So cheers. seniors! And best of luck dealing with one of the most stressful times of your life, thus far. May we party like rockstars after graduation.

Old is a Relative Term

I went to my very first frat party the Friday of Welcome Week my freshman year. I had only lived in my dorm for three days, and I went with a bunch of really loud girls who lived in my same hall, whose names I couldn’t remember if you paid me.

Somehow I ended up in an empty alley talking to some tall, blonde girl, who probably looked very pretty at an earlier point in the night. She was slumped on my shoulder as she told me hilarious, crazy stories about “when she was younger”. So of course I asked her how old she was. Her answer, “twenty-one, but that’s basically a grandma in college. I have two grand-littles….. TWO!” Then she gave me some slurred speech about living life to the fullest and so on. I digress.

She did get me thinking though. And since the start of the semester I can’t help but walk around campus and feel old. I mean besides grad students and instructors (please take no offense) we are the oldest!

We don’t know what’s cool anymore. Or what seemingly pointless classes freshman are required to take nowadays. We don’t know if they call things on campus the same thing we do. We can only hope they keep certain legacies alive.

Granted, some things never change. Frat stars will always wear Easter Egg colored shorts and Sperrys. Sorority girls will always be obsessed over the next Lilly print for their organization. Gym rats will continue to dress like gym rats and hipsters will be hipsters. But it just makes me wonder if I stick out… Can they tell I’m a ‘college grandma’? Do I have a different ora about myself? Is it that we have figured out studying is probably more important than beer pong at 2am?

I guess in retrospect, I’m about to feel youthful as ever as I enter the workforce next year. I’ll be the newbie, and here the cycle starts again. So “old” is relative. The process of being young and new to being seasoned and old can repeat itself over and over again as we progress through life. So don’t pour yourself a bowl of Raisin Bran just yet, we still have a lot of youth to live.

And just for a lovely blast from the past, I give you Justin Timberlake:

The Spring Break Countdown

I’ve come up with a definition for Spring Break Countdown based on personal experience:

Spring Break Countdown: The number of days a student or teacher has before the Saturday start of Spring Break. Number is typically kept track of, and can cause extreme levels of happiness and/or utter depression. Can be equally encouraging, or discouraging depending on quantity of days or circumstance.

As wordy and serious that may seem, it’s extremely accurate.

In previous Spring terms, by week three you would have been already crossing off days and counting down until you hop in a car with your best friends, heading towards sun and sand. And therefore, the infamous spring break count down.

It’s the number of days that, depending on when you look, can make or break your day. When you’re in the middle of writing another paper, and begin day dreaming of what you’ll be doing a few months from now, you look and count. 56 days… and begin self-loathing, you’ll never make it through. When you’re in the middle of studying, and only a mere 6 days from Spring Break, it energizes you, and you want to bust this test out with enthusiasm and leave town on a good note. 

This semester however, is very different to me. In years past, I have been known to start my countdown the first day of the semester. But now that my college career is nearing its end, I can’t help but try not to think about how close or far away break may be. Because once spring break is here, I only have one short month left of this amazing, four year, life-changing time of life. 

So, I’m trying to take everything day by day, and not waste time wishing things would come sooner. My advice to myself is not to wish away the last real months of youth I have. Before I’m responsible for paying student loans, having a day job, and having to actually act my age. I’m still excited for a vacation, but I’m trying to enjoy every day I have left at my university.

Your Last First Day

It’s finally here. Spring semester. The last semester of your four (maybe 5) year long trek through the trials and tribulations of being a college student. It’s the first day of the semester, where you typically roll out of bed, put on clothes that hardly resemble being presentable, drag yourself to a bunch of 20 minute classes, where you’ll have your syllabi read to you, as if you couldn’t have done that from the comfort of your own home.

But today is different. You may actually stride past the sweat pants for a pair of jeans. You may decide to do something with your ever-prevalent bedhead. After all, today is absolutely selfie worthy. It’s your last first day of college.

Actually, everything about this semester feels different to you. The all-nighters, love affairs with Starbucks and RedBull, and last minute pleading with your professors all seem to be worth it. By now you’ve figured out that Spring semester flies by, and as much as this excites you, it’s beginning to scare the absolute crap out of you. Now you realize, the real world is coming, and faster than you’d like. When someone asks you, “So, what are you going to do after college?” regardless of the good intensions they have, in your mind the answer is an angry

But it always comes out more elegantly than that. “Oh well, you know, I may go to grad school. Or travel. Or I may just jump into the workforce. Haven’t decided.” If college has taught us nothing else, it’s how to give  passive aggressive, yet diplomatic answers to literally any question.

It’s my last semester, too, and I’m freaking out. Between managing a larger than life course load, a 50 hour work week, and trying to nail down a job before I graduate, I may actually lose my mind. But I know I’m not the only one out there. I know many have been in my shoes before.

Someone offered me two pieces of advice recently in regards to this sticky spot in life we are at:

1. Do the things you need to do every day.

As simple as it sounds, do we really? When we wake up in the morning with a list of things to accomplish, how many actually get checked off before we go to bed? We can’t mess up this late in the game, and we don’t have time to waste. Even though we say it at the beginning of every semester, “I will NOT procrastinate”, lets actually not procrastinate. We can relax after graduation.

2. Keep your eye on the prize.

Prize = Graduation. When we are nose deep in papers to write before we head out to Spring Break, or we have 3 exams and a paper due on the same random Tuesday during the semester, even if we feel like the entire collegiate society of professors and TAs are conspiring against us, the end is near. Better times are around the corner, and we just have to stay focused.