Introduction

[anese]

Hi guys, I graduated college in 2007 during the horrible start of the market downturn. I finished school with a solid GPA but with a "worthless" degree. Bachelor of Science in History and Public Policy. I got it because I loved history, but I sucked at everything else. Went to a prestigious, hard to get into top 10 school, but when I finished it

Comments

[to]

You know, I understand how you feel. I know you just want to crawl into a hole and never come out, but you can't. If you want to get anywhere you have to try. Get out there every day and bust your ass. It's not easy for any of us. I graduated in December, found a "real" job within 2 weeks, and then got laid off 5 weeks later. Since then I've had to take a job as a nanny, which isn't so bad. Pays pretty well and there are perks, but this is what I did to get by in college, not a career choice. Sometimes you have to do something you don't like to make it. Giving up is the worst possible thing you could do to yourself.

[to]

Oh, by the way, my degree is in marketing. The job I found was in marketing, and I've gotten a few interviews for marketing positions. It's TOUGH out there for people looking for those positions right now unless you live in a big city.

[anese]

Yea, I was in a pretty bad place when I wrote this entry last night and couldn't sleep. I haven't given up because I can't--I have loans to pay back and going back home to live in that horrible neighborhood with limited opportunities scares me.

I'm going to keep working on finding a job--any job--even if I'm feeling very worn out.

It just stinks--I even killed myself trying to get those internships, applying to about 80 different places over the summer, doing interview after interview with inconsiderate people who don't call you back...then to finally get something and get treated like dirt...it sucked. I'm just demoralized at the moment, though I haven't stopped sending things.

[to]

Yeah, I understand. I had one internship for 4 months that ended on bad terms (which was partly my fault, but it got hard to give the kind of hours they wanted because I was taking 20 credits and trying to work a part time job at the same time.) Then I got hired at for a PAID internship (OMG!) and the lady called me the day before I was supposed to start and said, "I'm sorry, but we won't have a computer for you to work at tomorrow." I called her a few times and no one picked up the phone, so I wrote her an email that said, "That's okay. I'll come in anyway and try to get whatever I can get done without a computer! (Read: Which would have turned out to be a decent day's work most likely.) Unless you want me to come in at a later date?" and she never replied. I've gotten used to having a great interview and then never hearing back from people. It's the nature of the beast these days unfortunately.

[anese]

I actually interviewed at a place that probably would have been a fantastic opportunity, but then I found out that they wanted me to *steal* a professor's intellectual property who I worked for so that they could build a department dedicated to sustainable energy consulting.

They never said it in so many words, but it quickly dawned on me that this would be the expectation! And to top it off, they didn't have a computer for me to work from, they wanted me to just bring my own and squat in a corner. A lot of internships in these big cities are just criminal, trying to take advantage of people who need work.

[to]

Have you considered something like childcare? I know it's kind of insulting to think, 'Okay, I'm the 'help' and I have a degree.' It kind of is for me anyway, but I make a decent amount of money doing it and there are nice perks (like I'm going on vacation with my new family in a week.) I'm so thankful that I have something like this to fall back on so I don't have to work retail just yet. ESPECIALLY if you're in a large city you can make a shitton of money. When I was still living at home in Florida I regularly walked away from one day of work with $100-250 in cash and a free meal working either by the beach where I lived or in Orlando.