Graduation is in less than two months, so I can’t help but be nostalgic about my time on Grounds. I have loved studying at the University. Hearing my friends from Tech complain about our elegant lingo and nationally renowned academic programs has taught me how to embrace superiority. Taking physics classes where the class average on exams was a 50 percent but rounded up to a B built my faith. And now, having slowly withered away and accumulated debt to earn a liberal arts degree that still leaves me unqualified for the majority of entry level positions gives me humility.
But as influential as these past four years have been, this upcoming transition seems even more important.
My past 21 years of existence have been spent studying and eating dark chocolate, so looking to the future is equal parts exciting and confusing. I mean, I’m sure I’ll still be eating dark chocolate, but I’m not sure how I’ll be affording it yet. This semester, I finally stuck my pinky toe into the murky pool of career possibilities, and I immediately identified with the elephant from Tarzan who shrieks “Are you sure this water’s sanitary? It looks questionable to me!” True dat baby elephant — it does look pretty questionable.
To jump-start my job search, I attended the University Career Fair this spring. I shyly ducked into Newcomb holding seven copies of my resume. After quietly wandering around for 30 minutes avoiding eye-contact with everyone except the chocolate bars sitting on Hershey’s recruitment stand, I finally found myself drawn to a table. “Make a difference for today’s youth — Engage, create, support and mentor!” These buzzwords made my snowflake millennial heart flutter, so I approached the table and made excellent small talk for half an hour. Proud of my schmoozing success, I finally inquired about compensation, and that’s when I realized they were advertising glorified babysitting positions that paid nine dollars an hour. *Insert upside down smile emoji and/or face palm emoji here*
Since then, I’ve applied to a handful of jobs found on Indeed, LinkedIn, and SugarDaddiezLooking4Babiez, so we’ll see what turns out. For now, when old people miss my social cues indicating a preference not to talk about the future with them, I simply tell them, “I already beat teenage pregnancy, so I can die happy.”
But, there are two sides to every coin — unless it’s a trick coin and then that’s obviously not the prototype I’m referring to, so don’t be such a buzz kill. Just like the paranoid baby elephant, I have been feeling anxious amidst the ambiguity, but there are also reasons to celebrate. This stage of life is full of opportunities, and while some are a little ratchet like glorified babysitting or an early retirement in my parent’s basement, others are incredible. Heck, 27 middle-aged men have propositioned to buy me a red Mini-Cooper and a mansion to fulfill my MASH prophecy. And even more importantly, I am privileged enough to have lots of notifications on LinkedIn and two and a half more weeks of my free premium trial left.
So yes, I relate to that little elephant because I can be whiny and doubtful and anxious and I have larger than normal ears, but the main reason I relate to him — standing right next to the body of scary, murky water — is that we both will jump in. #HoosDontLose #JustDoIt #ClassOf2018
Kirsten Stiller is a Humor Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at humor@cavalierdaily.com.
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