Staying on the job hunt hasn’t been easy for me. Picking an English degree also didn’t necessarily help the situation much, in the same manner that throwing vodka into a burning building helps put out the fire. Having finished school only several months ago I am in the state that many students already find themselves or will soon be finding themselves in. The awkward state of not yet having meaningful employment while loans and other expectations wait outside your door. It’s a lot like having rampant acne on your first day of high school.
While it’s quick and easy to blame the major, as various other less directly marketable pieces of paper have probably felt the same, it's important to know why you picked the major you did. For me personally, I’ve always loved writing and creating content as well as editing so the English route seemed only natural to me. However, unlike more concrete degrees such as engineering, my degree has felt more like a piece of paper than anything else. Despite this, if you truly care about what you studied in college, the naysayers can’t have the last laugh if you always persist.
And while all the flowery language in the world can certainly sound nice, if not a little cloying, we must also admit the harsh truths of less concrete degrees. It will not be easy for us. For me, one of the roughest parts of is and was wading through the myriad of jobs and opportunities and finding myself either unqualified or lacking experience. Something I wish I learned in school that I know now, is that the work you do outside the classroom is just as important as the courses you take. Having experience makes your more marketable to make sure you seize opportunities as they come to you.
Dealing with rejection is also a necessary part of the experience. Unless you are by some chance, a sheltered Disney princess, most people have dealt with rejection at least at some point in their lives. It isn’t easy and it becomes easy to blame a lot of factors including friends, family, situations, and even oneself. While introspection is important, one must also recognize its limitations on self actualization when it becomes obstructive to further development. Short story, shit in, shit out. Staying positive especially when things might not be going the way you want them to is an important if not absolute skill needed by students and those about to enter the workforce. It's hard to give advice honestly, because everyone's situation is different. You have to adapt and make the best while still striving forward. As general as it sounds, it rings true for a lot of people.
In one particularly memorable quote from Yann Martel's Life of Pi, a survival handbook tells the shipwrecked character to be “daunted but never defeated.” While I don't expect the journey to be easy, I do expect to make it, you should too.
