I am one of the 200 or so students who just graduated from the OSU-Cascades campus here in Bend. Hurrah, I’m done! After 6 years of hard work pursuing an academic goal, I have finally achieved my Bachelor’s of Science. People have repeatedly asked me over and over again how it feels to finally be done with school. I keep saying that it feels surreal, but that I’m sure the truth will finally hit home. I’m still waiting.
The truth is, I realized about 4 days after my graduation ceremony that I had been feeling quite melancholy. And it hit me…..I’m depressed! Why had no one warned me of this? After years of studying and pursuing a goal and feeling like I was accomplishing something, here I am, in exactly the same spot I was before. It is just so anti-climatic. I am still in the same mediocre job that I was in before, but now, I have even more time to be there since I’m not in school. It also turns out that I’m unemployable anywhere else. Me, along with every other recent graduate, have entered into a horrible job market where there are so many people applying for every available job that employers can afford to be as picky as they want. And does my Bachelor’s degree mean anything? Noooo, they want experience. Well it’s been kinda hard for me to get that experience since I’ve spent the last 6 years being educated. I graduated with a 3.86 GPA, and yet I am doing a job that any person off the street could do with a mere 12 hours or so of training. Oh, and that’s not to mention that nice debt I’ve acquired getting that nice fancy degree.
So here is my proposal. The oppressive disorder of post-alumni depression should be immediately entered into the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Postpartum depression is in there, so why not this? All people suffering from post-alumni depression should jot down there symptoms and send them in to the American Psychiatric Association. So far, mine include:
* A strong irritability towards all people who keep asking what you are going to do with your life now that you’ve graduated.
* Resentment, not empathy, towards the many people being laid off everyday because you know there are even more people to compete with for a job now.
* A strong desire to spit in the eye of all high-maintenance customers in afore- mentioned mediocre job.
So power to all the depressed graduates! Let our needs be recognized! How do we treat this disorder (besides going back to school, which seems to be the only advice my fellow coworkers can give me)? Should I seek counseling, or load up on Xanax? After all, us graduates have needs, too (mainly, a decent job)!
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2009.
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Just remember in four or five years when the economy improves there’ll be a chance for you to move up. I’m not saying that that to make you feel good. I mean, you really need to remember cause by then you might forget.
How recently do I have to have graduated and still be able to join?
What did you get your degree in?
A 3.86 GPA and yet the letter contains at least 3 serious grammatical and/or spelling errors. Now I’m depressed.
Welcome to the real world, where things are not going to be handed to you. Yes it took a lot of work to get your degree and you should be extremely proud of your accomplishment. Now focus your energy on making contacts in your field and looking for a better job. You may need to take something that is very entry level, but it will give you opportunities for something better. Maintain a positive attitude, don’t whine, and realize there are a lot of people in similar situations. Be glad you at least have a job at this time, while you seek out your next step. Your attitude and how you appear to others can be a important as your college degree. I wish you good luck.
Don’t worry–you have plenty of company with people who have the education, the grades and the experience. Sorry employers aren’t beating a path to your door to hire you. After all, you clearly demonstrate the positive attitude, independence, and communications skills any employer would want to see in an employee.
Keep you accomplishment in perspective. Times will get better and your degree will pay off in the future. You have learned how to learn and that will help you for the rest of your life. Five days after I graduated from Oregon I was in the Army preparing to go to Viet Nam, but the degree paid off 10-fold in the long term.
Didn’t college teach you that life isn’t fair? You always have to be looking ahead and fighting for it. Just because you got your degree doesn’t mean life is easy, just a little easier. Congratulations on your accomplishment and completing your goal. Barriers are always going to be there pushing you back, and right now there are a lot of them. Now you have to suck it up, and push on. Life is a constant battle, and if you want something, you have to work hard every single day of your life, it never gets easy.
This may sound quaint, but is there NO purpose to education besides making more money?
Also I don’t like the phrase about being “done with” school. If you consider yourself “done with” learning now that you’ve got a bachelor’s degree you’re not going to get far in any field. You have to keep learning all your life to excel, whether it’s in school or out of it.
“Ancoro imparo” (“I am still learning”) — Michelangelo at age 87
Anon, I agree with HBM – quaint or not – you are far from done with school. Chances are your degree has only given you the basic set of tools for lifelong learning (and that’s only if you’re fortunate enough to have done a half decent degree). If you are through learning – you’re through!
The good news is this: as you get older, learning is more pleasurable and less of a chore (though not for everyone alas – there are always the few who are not only ignorant, but believe that’s a good thing!)
Congratulations
First of all, I don’t believe that college teaches anything about life, so you certainly won’t learn anything about “unfairness.”
Second, I kinda agree with HBM. We’ve sold our children a bill of goods. We tell them that without a degree, they will spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers. Young adults don’t want to “learn,” they want to make more money. So they go to institutes of higher earning and expect to be offered the VP job upon graduation.
And third, a degree is a waypoint, not a destination.
You said you are doing a job anyone off the street could be trained to do in 12 hours. So what? Demonstrate some strong and sincere “initiative” to your manager and ask for some more responsibility. Don’t judge others who have less an education than yourself…they’re in this life to work and earn a living just like you… and you’re no better than anyone else. Perhaps you’ve set your sights too high for the current state of the depressed economy.
As a recent grad also (Counseling) I’d have to ask, did you go to school just for the piece of paper, or did you learn anything in school? Did you learn how to solve problems? Do things you need to do whether they were in your comfort zone or not? Network with other people? Do research? Think globally? Learn anything new about yourself? Learn to see others in a different way? Since when did education become a ticket to a secure and better job? It expands your opportunity and awareness, and it might change who you are. Doesn’t guarantee you a particular job or a particular income. Now you’re a student of how to find a job that’s right for you. If there were a student assignment for you to find a good job, deadline 3 weeks from now or you get an F, fail the course, would you do it?
Getting a degree doesn’t automatically mean you’re handed a job. You have to work for it just as hard as you had to before you were handed your degree. This is common knowledge yet many people have the misconception that they will automatically be given this amazing job just because they graduated college. There’s people with a Masters in Science that are substitute bus drivers, people with English degrees that are working at your local McDonalds. The point is, it’s not the degree that gets you the job. What will get you the job is yourself. Your degree isn’t going to make you stand out any more than the rest of the post graduate population, but if you present yourself in the right manner, you’ll stand out. I am currently working on my second B.O.S. and I can honestly say that yeah, I got more interviews once I had my first Bachelor’s degree, but not more job offers than before. While a lot of that had to do with my young age (I started my college degree my sophomore year of high school), it hasn’t done me a lot of good thus far. I’m still laid off from a dead end job, still looking for work, and returning to school yet again. While my college does have a job placement program for graduates, I also know that there has to be a job out there that wants me before I’ll get placed. I’m not expecting to just be handed a job when I’m done next year.
As far as the depression, I went through that right after high school, but not college. If it’s really that bad, see a counselor. And I don’t mean that to be demeaning, I’m being literal.
Our educational system is not about learning–it is about job training. A ‘Liberal Arts’ degree usually led to a well rounded individual who had received the benefits of acquiring knowledge in Literature, Science, History, Economics, Philosophy, Etc.
No longer.
We have turned the educational system into a tool. It is nothing more than an instrument that is used to acquire skills to get the job that will in turn allow one to live the dream. Students are tracked from early on and encouraged to make a choice. What are you going to be when you grow up? Testing attempts to determine aptitudes and reinforce perceptions. Our educational system is in a shambles because it is designed to provide unthinking automatons that will fuel our economic system.
Bullshit? How many times a day does a Teacher/Professor hear: ‘Will this be on the test?’ After all, why actually spend any time learning or understanding if it isn’t going to further that goal of getting the paper? Of what use is knowledge? Look at the curriculums in primary and secondary schools–then go look at the text books from the 1920’s and 1930’s. Only our so-called ‘Advance Placement’ students get anything approximating the education the system used to provide to everyone.
Anon’s complaints are just that–the expected complaining of a spoiled generation, spawned by another spoiled generation, who expects to reap benefits after really having accomplished nothing. I am sure he or she will finally get it together and WORK to get the job they want and hopefully deserve.
Completing the thirteenth grade entitles one to zip.
I have been hiring, supervising, working with, and firing people in different jobs and careers for forty years. When people with this attitude present themselves, try as they might, they cannot hide that sense of entitlement. Resumes full of buzz-words, an emphasis on process, not knowledge, and communicating they are more interested in what I can do for them than in what they can do for me are only a few of the indicators I have seen.
The days of the generalist are over–everyone specializes, to their own detriment. If you train yourself exclusively to do one thing, don’t be surprised when the person hiring for something else passes you over for someone with the right training or experience.
Life’s a bitch–get over it.
Stephen Cramer
Again you hit the nail right on the head about the American education system. Shocked to my core after the 2000 presidential election (particularly the “debates”) I started to read some books on the subject. Started with “The Graves of Academe” then a few Neil Postman books like “Amusing Ourselves to Death” and non-Postman books like “Defending Elitism” and the excellent “A Nation GONE BLIND”
Eventually, I had to stop … too sad to read the demise of a Great Society.
Thanks for your letter