HELP NEEDED: What should I do fresh out of college???

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

I’m getting ready to graduate this spring but I have no idea what to do.

Most people get internships but I need to support myself financially. EVERY internship in my field is unpaid and time consuming because it wouls require majority of my time and set me up in a position where I will have to push my physical limits (internship, my grad school work, maintaining a personal life …etc)

My questions:

  1. What should i do?
  2. What kind of jobs should i be looking for? I can obviously get a job at a fast food restaurant but my pride is stopping me. I wouldn't say that kind of job is below me but I feel like I invested all of this money and time to obtain this degree with the assumption that a degree would keep me away from jobs like that.
  3. What kind of jobs do most people get? What kind of professional work would I be qualified to do?
2

What are you majoring in? If money weren’t an issue next year, what would your ideal situation look like? If you had wealthy parents who could subsidize you for another 5 years or so, how would you develop your career? Do you want to stay in your state/ city (and can you tell us where that is) or move somewhere specific (where?) or are you open to going anywhere? Do you have any interest in programs like peace corps or teach for America?

3

Go to the Career Center at your college. The people there are expert at helping students determine what kinds of jobs to look for, and then to apply for. The best job for you might well be one you don’t yet know exists.

4

Balancing grad school work? Or looking for a career starter job? Which is it?

5
  • I'm in the greater Seattle area and it's extremely competitive and there's two higher rank schools (in comparison to mine) with graduates looking for jobs. I'm under the general assumption that I can't afford to live here and finding those career starting entry level jobs might be kind of brutal. So I will definitely need to move cities eventually.
  • I double majored in visual communication (graphic design) and mass communications but my portfolio was created to appeal to grad schools showing the design work I did during my undergrad so at the moment I don't have a portfolio that displays design work I completed for money. It just shows my style and other design concepts/styles I'm familiar with.
  • I want a terminal degree in my field because I enjoy it and I want the option to teach at college level later in life. I know I don't want to wait because I spent 4 years focusing on this craft and for personal reasons, I'm extremely interested in seeing how far I can take this. I've made a few posts on here before and they urged me not go right after undergrad but I'm approaching grad school as a personal "pursuit and curiosity" kind of. I want the opportunity to dig deeper into the craft with other equally interested people.
  • I'm pursuing this grad degree because I'd like to on a leadership role 5-10 years down the line. (Creative director, Art director, project manager) basically a career where I'm leading a design team and I feel like having a MFA (or highest education possible) in that field would be an appropriate thing to have under my belt if thats what I'm pursuing.
  • Basically I've done the internship thing already but it's not graphic design related. I got into project planning at my school and interned in the student affairs office and I did a lead position in Programming events (delegating tasks to team members) so I have 2 years of work experience I'm just not sure what kind of jobs I should look for
6

Looking for a job can be a time-consuming job. Do you enjoy project planning? There are lots of industries that need project planners and it could open some doors for you.

7

Experiment with personal projects and get a job that was related to your degree?? I mean there is no right or wrong answer here.