Job Prospects = Dim

The say that if you go to a college like this you should have a bright future. We live in an elite (-ist?) society so all the Ivy Leaguers, Stanfordians, Northwesterners and the like are supposed to have bright employment opportunities. Most of the graduates eagerly work their way into the vicious bureaucracies and tangled up hierarchies of corporate America. The few who don't tend to follow the non-profit route. They say they'll "take time off" to do something they enjoy, or at least believe in, before they "get serious." *Smph.* As if working for a noble cause only ought to be a self-indulgent side-project, or otherwise something to do before "getting serious" with one's life--serious all too often and sadly implying Graduate School ("anything to put off our need to be a part of the real world!") or falling into the ranks of corporate USA (blinding ourselves with the myth of job security; anything for that comfy middle class lifestyle).

Being among that supposed "elite" crowd and having a nice-point.oh GPA, I shouldn't be fretting about my future, and I'm not too much. But there's no certainty in my future, and there are no employers a-knocking on my door. Part of it is my own fault. While some of my friends went off and signed juicy mega-corporate multiple-year contracts with starting salaries of over $100,000 per year as early as October 2005, I've exiled myself from those opportunities. Not to blindly vilify all corporations--I've learned, heard, and witnessed enough to know that at this point my life I rather not get sucked into mainstream corporate America. I'm not one to get rich while the poor in this country get poorer. Not one to buy a Mercedes SUV to make myself feel good. Not one to stress out, freak out, live that insane life just for money and material thangs. Nuh uh. No thank you. Not for me.

At the same time, I've been involved in the non-profit sector enough to know that's not a direction in which I'll hastily run again. I don't want to canvass and get door-to-door slammed on me. Don't want to get spat on by big money interests. Don't want to realize all over again how bureaucratized and corporatized even many of our beloved non-profits have become (because I haven't yet forgotten). Most of all, at this point in my life, if I'm going to work my ass off, I'd rather pass on a job that will pay me a yearly salary that is half of my college loan debt.

Momma's been urging me to spend some time at the University's Career Services Office. Last year I took her advice, and after several assessments and meetings with counselors I've come to the conclusion that it should be renamed Corporate Services Office. Sure that's not what they really are, and consequently they pay nice lip-service to "alternative" options like AmeriCorps, Teach for America, The SCA, etc. But let's get serious here, shan't we? Who comes to campus and does interviews, and recruits? It's extremely overwhelmingly the JP Morgans and Goldman Sachses, the Mercks, the Microsofts, the GEs, the blah de blah, blah, blah.

20 years old and too jaded to get a job after college.