That's What V Said

*Opinion*

Graduating is bittersweet. I can still remember my graduation from high school. As I sat at near the end with all the V’s I thought, “This is it… sort of.”

See, graduating high school wasn’t that depressing because I knew exactly what was next, Old Dominion University. I was sad to leave because I had a lot of fun in high school, but I was able to accept the fact that it was time to move on.  I figured the true friends would stick around anyway so there was really nothing to be sad about.

Now, I graduated from ODU with a Bachelor’s in English/Journalism and I have no idea what’s next. Cleverly I decided not to take a GRE or apply to any graduate schools. My thinking was that going to school again after being in school from age 5 to 22 wasn’t too appealing.

Honestly, I’ll probably go to graduate school in the near future. Before that happens, as of now, I’m going to be like all the other college grads putting a fishing pole in the workforce and waiting for a bite.

I hate fishing. And fishing for a job will be more stressful and will make me and other grads way more anxious than fishing for just a fish.

The job market is tough, I know. And I also know, thanks to some pessimistic professors, that a job in journalism won’t come easy. But a job in anything won’t come easy, and I want everyone else graduating this May or any time to know that no matter what some pessimistic professors might have said during class, it was only class. We’re grads now, and this is the time for positivity and perseverance.

I know not everyone will end up with a career in the field they got their degree in. That’s something I worry about. I’m sure many seniors do. We could be sitting in a cubicle at a job we didn’t necessarily dream of and think; did my degree go to waste? And I always wonder; should seniors be picky about where they want to work?  We couldn’t be too picky however since we are constantly reminded to take what we can because the economy isn’t too promising. But, the job we get after college could end up being our lifelong careers so I think despite the threats of the spiraling downward economy, we shouldn’t think too desperately and choose wisely.

That freaks me out. Think about it, graduating college puts us in the official “adult” box.  In college, for the most part, we could fail an exam and do extra credit. If we fail at a job, we get fired. Then we’re fishing again.

College grads might not be too deep down the bottom of the food chain in the workforce as some might think, however. After all we do have degrees. And, we know about Twitter and Facebook.

I know it might sound lame but most ads for jobs I’ve seen ask for someone who is familiar with web/graphic design or social media. And all along we thought we might have been wasting time on Twitter and Facebook when we were supposed to be studying or writing papers.  Irony, we meet again.

This might come off as farfetched, but the other option for us graduates could possibly be getting famous off a YouTube video, creating a celebrity gossip web site that generates lots of hits, or getting in The Real World and becoming famous off being the dramatic, psychotic antagonist.

Either way, the future could be bright for many graduates. With a college diploma in one hand and a BlackBerry/iPhone with a Facebook application in the other, graduates could multitask a way to get their fishing poles in the workforce and get some bites.