When Will My Life Begin?

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

<p>I feel stuck, in limbo...and just plain scared. </p>

<p>I graduated in May, moved in with my mother, and still have not found a job no matter how hard I try. I am working an unpaid internship, hoping it might bolster my chances of getting real, paying work. But student loan payments start in November, and I have little left in savings. My boyfriend, a 2009 grad who is also living with my mom and me, has only found two jobs since he finished school, one full-time and one part-time, neither with health insurance and neither paying enough to live where we do (or used to). There are no promises of job openings on the horizon, no promotions, nothing that would allow either of us to actually LIVE and be INDEPENDENT. </p>

<p>So many people don't understand this. But what are people in situations like this supposed to do? I am nearly 23 and I feel like my life is passing me by and I have no control over it. When will this recession be over? When will I have peace? When will my life actually begin?</p>

<p>Is anyone else out there in this situation? How are you managing? What do we do now? What can we do?</p>

2

<p>What is your degree?</p>

3

<p>BA, and from a very good school. But why should that even matter? Ten years ago in a boom economy nearly any bachelor’s from a good school would get you a decent-paying job.</p>

4

<p>There is your biggest problem (even bigger than the current economic recession). You have misinterpreted things or been misinformed. Even ten years ago in a boom economy, major was important. It was a couple of decades ago, if not more, when it was NOT important. By BA do you mean “Bachelor of Arts” or “Business Administration” (correctly called BBA). </p>

<p>If you mean Bachelor of Arts, you’re definitely in serious trouble - as you can see now, a BA provides very little real-world skills, experience, or post-college career opportunities beyond those provided by just getting any college degree (unless it was a quantitative-focused major, which I doubt, since you didn’t mention what your actual major was). With a BA, it is also extremely important to have a very high GPA, regardless of the school you attended. The only reason employers are interested in liberal arts majors at all is because of demonstrated ability to learn fast. A low or mediocore GPA does not demonstrate that ability, even if you have it. </p>

<p>If you mean Bachelor of Business Administration, you’re still in trouble because you didn’t mention a concentration, which likely means you graduated with a plain BBA and didn’t take a concentration within it (Accounting, Finance, Management Information Systems, Marketing, etc…). The entire point of a BBA is to gain an edge on the liberal arts students by developing semi-practical skills and experience for a real-world job, which puts your resume ahead of many of them…if you took a concentration. However, since even a BBA is weak on developing practical skills compared to highly technical degrees like Computer Science or Engineering, GPA is still important to demonstrate that ability to learn fast. Furthermore, it has a reputation of being easier than CS/Eng (it mostly is) and therefore employers know that Bus GPAs are inflated compared to CS/Eng.</p>

<p>Anyway, yes the recession is bad and even college graduates who have all these things are having trouble finding jobs. But if you want a GOOD career, with or without a recession, you can’t just blame it all 100% on the economy and wait for things to get better. If you have exhausted all possible search options for the type of job you want or a career path to get to that job, you need to consider VERY heavily researching (much more than you did this time around - I researched a lot and still made mistakes) what specific careers you can/want to pursue and go back to school for a specific degree that can lead you to those careers.</p>

5

<p>I think YOU are misinformed. Or simply misinterpreting what I’m saying college grads NEED, not what they want. In a boom economy people with BAs in fields such as Art History, English, etc. got jobs in the non-profit sector (museums, foundations, you name it) or for-profit jobs in areas like publishing, galleries, auction houses, and many more. These jobs paid $35,000+, a meager salary compared to those working in, say, finance, but enough to comfortably live on if you were willing to sacrifice some middle-class comforts like a dishwasher, extra bedroom, or super-safe neighborhood. </p>

<p>All I and many others like me are looking for is a job that pays enough to live. You can’t blame us for not being able to get that. All of the aforementioned jobs now require a master’s degree or what seems like five internships. And on top of all this, even if you aren’t looking to start a “career” and are comfortable with a lower standard of living, work in places like restaurants or coffee shops doesn’t pay nearly enough to survive on with student loan payments and the current high cost of living. Even banks are now starting to charge you to use debit cards, which I guess means we have to buy on credit? And how are we supposed to go back to school to get a higher degree when we have no money, no job, and government subsidized loans have been cut?</p>

<p>This drives it all home, though: in 1972 someone pumping gas was making (adjusted for inflation) more than what foundation work ($10-$12/hour) pays now. </p>

<p>So don’t tell me it’s me that’s the problem. And do YOUR research before you chide me or others in my situation because we have a Bachelor’s of Arts with honors in a field we wanted to study (and that did give excellent experience in many areas, much more than any professionalized field would have taught) rather than one we felt we “needed” because we weren’t greedy and didn’t care about modern amenities. The fact is we aren’t even SURVIVING on our own now. This is the worst recession since the great depression. Get your facts straight.</p>

6

<p>It’s unfortunate, but ultimately, there just aren’t a lot of jobs in certain areas.
There is nothing wrong with a school like barnard, but ultimately, it isn’t a name that will attract top employers.
I know it’s not a great situation, but ultimately, if you don’t go to a top school and don’t major in something with many employment opportunities, the odds aren’t in your favor.
You need to find tooth and nail for any opportunity.
If you haven’t done this already, go through your alumni database and start calling people. Develop relationships with them in the hopes that if a job opportunity become available, they will want to push for you.
Find positions that match your background, get a concrete story to tell to people and be able to explain exactly why you are the best person for the job.
People do not want hear another sob story or someone who blames everything on the recession (no matter how true this may be). You want to show them you are confident and absolutely the best person for the job.
Also, don’t limit yourself. If you haven’t reached out to 200+ people, you haven’t put in enough effort.</p>

<p>If this doesn’t pan out, grad school is always an option. Going into more debt may sound scary, but it beats your current situation.
Don’t make the mistake of going into an area with limited employment options this time around though.</p>

7

<p>Our son lived home about 1 year after graduating from Tufts with a degree in Economics . We paid for him to join a gym that had a lot of boxing and kick boxing classes . We paid for him to start a graduate degree in Accounting . After about 1 more year , he got a job which pays well , but is boring for him , but he is so happy to be working and living on his own ! You need to find some volunteer work or taking a graduate course that is interesting to you . Every day counts - this is it !</p>

8

<p>First of all, no one said anything (especially not me) about what is just or unjust. I was talking about how things are, not how they should be. The topic of justice and what is fair/right is an entirely different matter, one that 99% of both Earth’s population and America’s population could care less about (I am part of that tiny opposing minority that obviously has no influence over what happens in the world or the nation). Just like none of the middle class or higher cares about the people who can’t find 35k/year jobs, back in the “boom economy” the people with 35k jobs didn’t care about the people with 15k/year jobs. And the people with 15k/year jobs don’t care about the people both in America and around the world who don’t have anything at all and are starving, dying of preventable/curable illness, and living in absolute squalor. That is just class. Once you add in race, religion, nationality/ethniticity, gender, sexual preference, language, geographic origin/location…you end up with a LOT of different combinations of people who don’t care about a LOT of “other” different combinations of people.</p>

<p>The only way anything is ever going to get better is when a majority (as opposed to the current tiny minority) of people start speaking and acting in favor of universal justice for everyone, regardless of what “combination” to which someone belongs. Until then, everyone will continue bickering over how big of a piece of the pie belongs to them and NOT to the others, human injustice will continue growing, and when we talk about <em>what is</em> on College Confidential, we unfortunately can assume that 99% of the time we are not talking also about <em>what should be</em> :)</p>

<p>Anyway, my original post’s point is, regardless of what happened in the old “boom economy,” you shouldn’t be waiting for things to return to the way they were. Because those days are gone. The next “boom,” whenever it does happen, won’t be anything like the last boom, and nor will the boom after that be anything like the previous boom. Things are changing, and they are not changing for the better (at least for those that do not belong to the very top wealthy elite of the world). Populations are growing, nations are losing their social cohesiveness, religious intolerance and conflict is growing more violent and dangerous, natural resources are running out, both legal and illegal immigration policies in America are becoming increasingly open, outsourcing continues at a rapid rate, and economic/financial resources are increasingly spread thin around the world. What does all this mean? LOTS more competition.</p>

<p>Is the increasing competition so great that it means that non-wealthy students can no longer afford to pursue their “dreams” and “passions” in fields that can no longer provide a <em>living</em> (which is below middle-class as you said) wage after college? There is a resounding YES to that question! Is that the way it is? Yes. Is that the way it should be? An entirely different topic - and I didn’t see you ask “is this the way it should be?” in your original post.</p>

9

<p>So I’m just not reading the first few posts in this thread. Putting that out there.</p>

<p>I graduated recently too, and while I was fortunate to secure a job early, it was only because I refused to graduate without having a job locked up. As a result I applied to more than fifty companies in ten different sectors of the economy. Plenty of my friends are still unemployed, though they are slowly finding jobs.</p>

<p>The reality is that your major does not determine your industry. If you think you have exhausted all of your options in the field you studied to enter, you’ll have to start looking elsewhere. Plenty of people are in that boat, so don’t feel like you’re alone.</p>

<p>If you want to get a job (not necessarily your career but a job of some sort), here is what I recommend.</p>

<ol>
<li>Update your resume. Make sure you include ANYTHING that has given you tools to bring to the workplace. This could be something like how working retail gave you interpersonal skills with people who were decades your elder (just an example). Once you update it, talk to a career counselor; if you can get to your school career services center, that’s awesome. If not, find somewhere else. Have someone tear your resume apart and show you how to make it powerful, relevant and informative.</li>
<li>Start looking in different sectors for jobs. It could be something completely random, and you may find something you actually really like!</li>
<li>Apply early and apply often. Seriously. In this economic situation, the shotgun approach to applications is just the way to secure a job, though maybe not the best possible. Look in locations you hadn’t previously considered.</li>
</ol>

<p>If you have trouble, then the sad truth is that you need to look for jobs that aren’t career jobs. Restaurant jobs pay very well and provide you with a skill that you can fall back on if you are to lose your job in the future. In the short term you will have cash to use for loans and day-to-day living. You will also have daytime flexibility to go on interviews for more permanent jobs.</p>

<p>If you’d like, I’d be happy to review your resume… a lot of people are in your situation, and it is a shame, but you can still succeed.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>Um…because your degree area and the GPA that accompanies that degree are absolutely critical to job placement.</p>

<p>The value of an undergraduate degree has fallen dramatically; this isn’t a new surprise. The of a liberal arts degree is worse now than even before. Society has become jaded by the idea that A) everyone should/needs to attend college B) everyone that attends college will automatically be able to add value to society (aka be employable). These assumptions are simply untrue, even if they are unfortunate.</p>

<p>What area is your BA in?
Grades?
GPA?
How flexible are you on location?
What industry/field are you trying to get a job?</p>

11

<p>Did you have any part-time or summer jobs during school? Couldn’t you at least go back to doing that in the meantime?</p>

12

<p>Psh. ChrisW. hit it on the head. If you want a job in this economic climate, you have to hit the ground running. You need to send out endless applications with customized cover letters. You have to network. You have to be flexible. You have to market yourself. And you have to think outside the box.</p>

<p>Graduates with B.A.s aren’t the only ones having trouble getting a job–everyone is. B.A.s are hired in industries unrelated to their area of study because of the basic principle of their coursework: Their critical reasoning and writing skills are often among the best…as they should be.</p>

13

<p>Where do you live?.</p>

<p>I ask this because there are some areas of this country where the economy is not as bad as in other areas.</p>

<p>You and your boyfriend might have to get in a car, and move to a city where the economy is not as bad.</p>

<p>You can probably research on the internet which States have the lowest unemployment rates. They are likely to be in unsexy places like South Dakota, but so be it.</p>

<p>I am a lawyer, but during my life, I have had to find jobs in other cities MANY times to avoid unemployment. </p>

<p>As for your liberal arts degree, my son, who is 17, is planning on going that route too, even though he has a 2300 SAT. I advise against going that route. It was ALWAYS hard for liberal arts majors to get jobs, and they often wound up as teachers. After all, what do you do with a history degree? But now, schools are not hiring. They are cutting. </p>

<p>Whatever you do, I advise you and your boyfriend NOT to go to law school, because that will simply compound your problem. There is a VAST oversupply of lawyers. What I WOULD advise, and you won’t like it, is to go to your local community college and get some some of degree or certification in something that is more of a “trade”. Or pursue a graduate degree in something more practical, like computer science or biology or nursing (but of course, that costs money)</p>

<p>I had a client who worked as an Emergency Medical type guy in an ambulance. When he retired, he got a $1,000,000 pension.</p>

14

<p>^Liberal arts degrees are not necessarily a bad thing. At my summer internship (finance), the 2 most highly represented majors were math and economics. They also recruited heavily at liberal arts colleges (Amherst, Williams and to a lesser extent Middlebury). There were also plenty of english, history and philosophy majors.</p>

<p>As long as you’re at a decent school, what you major in doesn’t really matter as much.
If you’re at a school that isn’t as well known such as Bucknell or doesn’t have as a great of a reputation (penn state), however, your major is much more important.</p>

<p>If your son had a 2300 on his sats, he should be able to get into a top school and should have no issues with a liberal arts degree.</p>

15

<p>I’m not sure why people are assuming that:</p>

<ol>
<li>I haven’t exhausted all of the possibilities available to me.</li>
<li>I haven’t applied to hundreds of jobs.</li>
<li>I haven’t looked for jobs outside of my field.</li>
<li>I can afford to attend grad school (or that taking out loans to go would be smart–even those with master’s degrees are walking dogs right now, and government subsidized loans no longer exist).</li>
<li>I can afford to volunteer or not work (though I am doing this now–you know, interning).</li>
<li>That restaurant work pays enough money to live on (I have student loans, $10/hour isn’t going to cut it; not to mention many restaurants won’t hire college grads because they assume they’ll take off in a few months when they find other work).</li>
</ol>

<p>I don’t want/need a career job, though I would take one if I needed to. I am not particularly attached to working in any field. Would I like a job in the arts or something related? Of course. But I’m not demanding one. I have applied to all sorts of places with nary an interview, and have watched my boyfriend over the past three years interview for/take work in industries of all sorts–restaurants, door-to-door sales, foundations, libraries, real estate, tutoring. Those areas that paid enough ended up taking those with higher degrees, while those he did get and take required long hours for little pay (certainly not enough to live on). My parents have been willing to help both of us, but the parent fund is running dry and they won’t be able to for much longer, as one of them is also unemployed. We are happy to move anywhere we can find work and have strongly considered somewhere like New Hampshire, but neither of us have support in/around anywhere but two very expensive cities, so honestly I’m terrified to take the risk of moving somewhere and ending up homeless (though I’m about to give up and try). There is no way I can afford graduate school now, especially without the promise of a job at the end; nor are there really any jobs left in even “practical” fields–floridadad is sound to advise against law school, which is seeing major unemployment trends now.</p>

<p>I’m not writing this post because I sit around pitying myself day-to-day or feel like I “deserve” more. But I’m scared and in a terrible situation, and I was just hoping to find some kindred spirits out there who are experiencing the same problems and feel the same way. So please don’t come on here and **** on someone who’s already feeling really down–if you have a problem with it then just don’t reply.</p>

16

<p>Join the Air Force. Yes, I’m somewhat serious.</p>

17

<p>I don’t know where you live, but in my part of the country, Los Angeles area, some stores are hiring retail personnel. Working full time, you could make around 18K a year. Just one idea. Not much to live on by yourself, but if your boyfriend also has work that could pay around that much, you two could afford a place to share and make it work if you are very frugal. The key is living with another person in your same situation- a room mate or boyfriend. If you could find an apartment for around $1000 or less, ($500 a piece) which would be less than a third of your combined income, you should be able to make ends meet.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, you can continue to look for something that matches your interests more. Keep networking and broadening your associations.
And if you don’t live in an area that has a fairly large retail industry, you should really consider moving to a city that has more opportunity in general.
Btw, it has always been difficult in my lifetime (I’m 60) to find work as an art major. Teaching is usually the default, but schools are laying off instead of hiring. The situation was the same when I graduated, as well. What were your plans, as far as jobs go, when you decided to major in art?
I’m not disparaging your choice of major. ( I majored in philosophy)
But you probably had some ideas of what you wanted to do with your major. Keep working with those ideas, but take something in the meantime, like retail, customer service or hotel or restaurant work.
And don’t give up. Four months really isn’t that long to be looking.</p>

18

<p>Teaching English abroad might be a good experience for you . Your boyfriend could do it, too, if he were interested. There are a lot of opportunities in Asian countries for American college grads with just about any major.
[10</a> Hottest Jobs in America for 2011 - CBS MoneyWatch.com](<a href=“MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News”>MoneyWatch: Financial news, world finance and market news, your money, product recalls updated daily - CBS News)</p>

<p>Also, with your background, you might be interested in web design. My son has done very well with this as a side business when he needed extra cash in college, and there is still a lot of demand out there for designers. You have to find your clients, although many are found through word of mouth.</p>

19

<p>If you’re looking at restaurants that only pay 10 an hour, you’re looking at the wrong places… any halfway decent BYO gives you $2.13 an hour, but you can expect to make $150-$250 per night, and that is more than enough to live on.</p>

<p>Frankly, if you think you have done all you can and have found nothing, you haven’t done all you can. Don’t give me this woe-is-me story and then say that you aren’t doing so. That is exactly what you are doing. Pick yourself up and start looking for a job in sectors you haven’t considered.</p>

<p>If you want to react to people attempting to help by saying you have already done everything they are suggesting, you can, but you can be certain that these ARE best practices and that the only way for you to find success is by using these practices. It isn’t easy.</p>

<p>You may have applied to a thousand places, but if your resume isn’t good, you won’t get an interview. You said nothing about your resume, just that you want a job. Well, start there. Rewrite your resume and start applying again, after having someone look at it.</p>

<p>I can say with confidence that I am not trying to make you feel badly, and it is a little silly for you to criticize the responses that are legitimately intended to HELP you. If you don’t want advice, you shouldn’t come here. If I didn’t say it in my previous post, I should have: I will review your resume and cover letter, and I will give you meaningful feedback if you want it. I’m not coming from a place of inexperience here, either… I’ve reviewed dozens of resumes and helped to get almost a dozen people jobs in my life, and after going around the block a few times, I know what works and what doesn’t; I know the mistakes that people make because I MADE THEM ALL!</p>

20

<p>I agree with some of the things chrisw is saying. None of us were saying you deserve the situation you are in (at least based on the facts given to us). And I don’t know about everyone else, but although the list of assumptions you gave were certainly possibilities in my mind, I was not assuming any of them. I highly doubt any restaurant job that is not already hard to get will provide a true living wage (healthcare and all) - of course that doesn’t mean people with no job at all should not take it. As chris said, if you have stopped trying already, then you haven’t exhausted your options. If you are still trying (which it sounds like), the only thing you can do is keep trying as hard as you can. Also, Law is not one of the “practical” fields in this day and age (unless you have the extreme mental capabilities necessary to get into the T14 and graduate as a top student among the entire school-full of top students you are competing with) - so that is not what people are talking about when they say “practical.” Practical is computer science, computer information systems, accounting, engineering, etc…</p>