I am honestly getting really sick of being congratulated on graduating college. Yeah, I made it, but just barely. This doesn’t really feel like an accomplishment to me. All I got was a piece of paper (which I haven’t actually received yet) and over $20,000 of debt (which is really not that much compared to my peers). I’ve had multiple interviews but no real job offers and they’re all hours away, not in my field, or both. None of this seems worth it, now.

If you came here looking for advice, here’s mine: don’t go to college. Don’t do it unless you know there is something you’re really good at and can work really hard at for four years and get a good job right after graduation. I don’t know very many students who have gotten job offers, and I even know a few who will have no job and no home after college.

Maybe I will feel accomplished once I get a full-time job. I mean, I have a part-time job at CVS, but that’s not really an accomplishment, either. Part-time jobs like that will hire anybody. When I do work that I’m really proud of, that’s when I’ll feel worthy of congratulations. When my resume doesn’t just get me the interview, but the hard work I’ve done actually gets me an income, THAT is when I will accept congratulations. And I’ll be able to afford the champagne myself.

Of course, graduating was exciting. I felt a small sense of pride walking to receive my diploma, but my entire family has done that. I want to be better. I know my family says they are proud of me for graduating college, but how can they have pride in something I’ve done when they did it so much better? My parents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives graduated from their universities with 3.0 and above, and I didn’t even reach that. I’m ashamed to even put my GPA on my resume.

Even other family members in my generation (siblings and cousins) are doing better than me in school! My brother just got accepted to the University of Maryland and he is taking all AP classes at his high school and still getting a 4.0! How the hell am I supposed to live up to that?

And you know what else? I still feel like I worked my ass off just to get a shitty grade. My grades have only been going down since I started college and it’s probably due to my work hours going up. I don’t even pay my own rent, but I’ve had to work almost 40 total hours a week at my two jobs during the school term just to feed myself and pay for utilities. I’ve dealt with customers giving me attitude at one job and my manager being a bitch at the other for two years. I’ve spent hours on my computer, in the lab, and in my living room studying, doing homework, and applying for jobs every day.