“I feel like post-college, pre-career is an underratedly sucky phase of life,” my cousin said to me this Thanksgiving. I sighed with relief. He'd taken pity, releasing me from my attempts to spin general hopelessness into some sort of ‘I’m moving forward’ narrative. “Yeah. It sucks a lot,” I said. I don’t know what I am doing. I’m underemployed. I’m clinically anxious and depressed (long-term struggles exacerbated by the aforementioned). I’m not sure about where to go next. Career-oriented jobs feel impossible to get -- they say they like me, but decide to go with someone with more experience. I’m applying to grad school with relatively little hope of getting in, and limited self-assurance that it is truly what I want to do the next four years of my life. I’m not alone in this situation. Post-college depression and anxiety are documented phenomena, marked by joblessness, addiction, confusion, loneliness, and fear. For the most educated generation (34% with a bachelor’s degree) entering entering the working world, this negative experience is not uncommon. Many young people don’t recognize that they are depressed, just that they are always frustrated or having trouble focusing, feel tired all the time even when they get enough sleep, or have lost interest in the things they used to love. Advice abounds around the internet -- suggestions for keeping your head up, embracing uncertainty, and just working a little harder you lazy, entitled millennial. Many of the articles discussing my generation -- a widely decried, and defended, group -- say this situation (often cited as a “phase,” like a health-kick or fleeting interest in a particular TV show) is a result of “idealistic hopes about life after the diploma. Expecting that they will get hired into a top position at their dream company while earning exorbitant amounts of money.” The phrasing of this particular quote is a bit polemic, telling the reader to dismiss depressed recent graduates’ issues as their own fault -- they’re just expecting the world handed to them on a silver platter. In more realistic language, however, this expectation of a college degree leading to steady and gainful employment is a part of the American Dream. Take, for example, my family. My immigrant grandmother didn’t finish high school, but supported her family driving school buses, and making wise financial choices along the way. My mother finished college, went on to get her master’s, and has supported my brother and I through her work as a teacher and now as an employee at a university. I have graduated college and… I’m working at a gym scanning membership cards. The idea that each generation builds on the last is a part of the American dream, but it’s not a reality for many young people today. Recently, a group of Ivy League researchers published an article showing that, “adjusting for inflation, slightly more than half (51%) of today’s 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at the same age." While it sounds impressive at first, it's a small number when compared to the 92% of people born around 1940 earning more than their parents did at age 30. According to Pew Research Group, my generation is the first “in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations (Gen Xers and Boomers) had at the same stage of their life cycles.” That is to say, as the graph moves right, toward today, “it points down like a ski slope.” I can’t speak for my entire generation, but amongst my friends the oft-cited millennial expectation of post-college greatness does not hold true. We’ve long been aware of the ski slope. We were shown it in the ‘tough love’ of our scary high school guidance counselors pushing us into too many extracurriculars for the sake of our resume. We saw it in the disapproving looks we received from older white men at our parents’ holiday work parties or church functions when they found out we were planning on studying anything besides engineering or nursing. We saw it too in the “You’ll find something!” from these older white men’s well-meaning wives. It's sometimes difficult to grin and bear it when the unemployment rate for college-educated millennials is 3.8 percent, more than double the 1.4% of the Silent generation before them, when all these disapproving older white men came of age. Despite our reputation, many of my peers don’t expect good things from the world. We know that messages to “follow your passion” aren’t realistic -- we can’t all be the Next Big Thing, especially when there are about 4.6 billion more people competing for the top spots than there were when our grandparents were our age. We read the news. We apply to ‘entry level’ positions requiring 3+ years of experience. We have massive amounts of student loan debt, quadrupled in the last decade, that we are trying to pay off with our hourly wage. We know that this debt has been accrued for a degree that carries the same weight a high school diploma did thirty years ago. We fight for unpaid internships that will give us that experience, while forcing us to accumulate even more debt. We struggle to find good jobs, and we struggle to defend ourselves in the struggle. Older adults have two easy, disparaging responses to struggling millennials -- to stereotype young people as entitled and useless, or to point at unfilled non-degree jobs. It’s a lot easier than talking about the economic complexities of globalization and automation that are changing the job market as we speak. Over the last few decades income has stagnated for just about everyone, not just a particular, lazy generation. Yes, some non-degree jobs are short of workers and, in the short term, it might benefit young people to enter into these professions. However, given the future of automation, they aren’t likely to last long. Take, for example, trucking. It doesn’t require a degree, and there are plenty of job openings in the sector. Lacking prestige, however, it wouldn’t win much approval from those who recommend it, and it is also a job likely to disappear within the next five years given the driverless future. Most non-degree jobs are the same. My generational peers who graduated during the Great Recession may never make up the difference in lost income and opportunity. My graduating class has had the advantage of receiving our degrees during a time of low unemployment and a generally healthy economy, and we still struggle to find gainful employment. While the current job market is, at large, doing well, it’s not so great for young people. Great Recession business decisions, to outsource low-level work and automate as much as possible, have eliminated a massive number of entry level jobs from the hiring system that is still in operation today. There’s no such a thing as “working your way up the ladder” when the bottom rungs have disappeared. A typical ‘entry level’ position requires two to five years of experience, and with a relentlessly crowded job market, young people are competing with more experienced workers for these low-level jobs. It appears that the ‘entry-level’ modifier in a job posting essentially translates to “we want young blood” -- a thinly veiled demonstration of the ageism that is also a growing problem in the U.S. job market. As of November of 2016, unemployment rates for workers 20 - 24 years old was at 8.1%, almost double that of the national unemployment rate. As recently as July of 2015, the 20 - 24 year old unemployment rate was 10.0 -- the same rate as national unemployment at the height of the Great Recession. For some people, college was something of a ‘golden era’ in which they were surrounded by close friends, had mountains of freedom, and little responsibility. Graduation can put a stop to that experience, resulting in “a vast expanse of free days with too much time to think about how overeducated and underexperienced you are.” Friends are spread out across the country, and financial and familial responsibilities begin to weigh heavy. For myself and others like me, college was not a particularly fun experience -- I had few friends, struggled with mental illness, and felt a crushing weight of responsibility on my shoulders most days. And still, even without the big drop off in daily life circumstances that many of my peers experience post-graduation, I feel as if I am in a “hopelessly long queue at a soup kitchen, where the meal they’re serving is [my] future… waking up each day with a giant question mark over [my] life and feeling this immense pressure to do something with all that [I] learned.” A major aspect of post-college depression, according to both research and my own experience, is a loss of independence. This is in part due to moving back in with parents, as many graduates of my generation do. The need to adhere to a different set of rules, tell someone when your schedule changes, ask to borrow the car, and put in requests ahead of time for shared groceries is quite an adjustment. Another contributing factor is a sudden deprivation of intellectual autonomy. One of the main objectives of many colleges and universities is to teach their students to “think independently and to be creative in their problem solving,” Many college students do this successfully, then graduate only to find themselves in the same pay-grade they were in high school, working jobs with little creativity, little input in processes, and an understandably resultant sense of personal constraint. My generation has also been taught that every decision is critical to our future success, with little room for error. We had to go to the right college, be involved with multiple clubs, get good grades, land an internship with a major company, and make deep and important connections with everyone who mattered -- professors, advisers, career counselors, etc. If we wanted to get into the right college, we had to excel in the right high school extracurriculars, take as many AP classes as we could, work a part-time job, volunteer consistently, and get at least a 4.2 GPA. We also had to make sure we had a significant other, went to all the dances and football games, and formed great relationships with friends because, after all, this was the time of our lives. We had it so easy. In order to manage all of this in high school, we had to get started by 4th or 5th grade at the latest -- sports, choir, band, and math club, good grades, Honors English, goal setting, and a life plan. This was the way to success. To do otherwise would surely end in disaster: no job after graduation, destined for a life of misery and low income, for which our future children would suffer. According to the narrative we’ve been taught, our presence in the category of jobless graduate means that we did something wrong. We messed up the life plan, and the future isn’t looking very bright. For a lot of us, misery was expected to come with the territory of post-college joblessness -- a territory we tried really, really hard to avoid. I think this lifelong emphasis on the gravity of each action has led many of my peers to believe that the end is nigh if we take a step in the ‘wrong’ direction -- take a job in marketing only to find out we hate it, go to graduate school for a subject that turns out not to be our passion after all. Feeling like we messed up the plan already, seeing as we are in this jobless/underemployed state, we’re scared to try anything else. What if it puts us somewhere even worse? Even more miserable? The endless advice from all sides isn’t much help. Mostly it’s paralyzing, sending the thought spiral into “Maybe I am rushing the career thing too fast. Maybe I should be exploring more or traveling? Go to grad school? I have no idea! Afraid to make any choice right now!” It’s a high stakes world that has been shown to us -- it doesn't surprise me that some of my generation (the decried “lazy and entitled” millennials) have simply stepped out of the ring and taken a lower-key option. The road ahead of my generation is incredibly high stress and, so far as we can generally see, has a pretty high chance of leading to narrative failure. As members of a decried generation, we millennials often feel blamed for our situation, and regardless of whether or not we are truly culpable, guilt and shame are difficult burdens to bear. Many requests are made of young people. As a one woman put it to the New York Times, “It’s somewhat terrifying to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” I’m not saying we don’t have leisure time, and neither, I think, is this young woman. We have the time to watch a show on Netflix, but we don’t feel like we have the time to enjoy where we are at in life. It’s a never ending quest to do more, to win approval, to win the game of success -- and maybe it’s success by someone else’s definition. While the economic factors promoting this difficult stage of life are not exclusive to any particular demographic, I think the overall identity crisis may, in part, be tied to privilege. These complaints that I have voiced, while heartfelt and real, are also the complaints of those with considerable advantage. To have attended and completed college, to be allowed to have an identity crisis, to waffle between careers -- all of this is evidence that I do not have to take the first job that comes along. I have the ability to use my support networks of well-off parents and connected family to find a path that works for me. According to Jennifer Lynn Tanner at Rutgers University, “If you spend this time exploring and you get yourself on a pathway that really fits you, then there’s going to be this snowball effect of finding the right fit, the right partner, the right job, the right place to live. The less you have at first, the less you’re going to get this positive effect compounded over time. You’re not going to have the same acceleration.” To have the time and money to find the right fit is an advantage that many people do not have. On the flip side, however, the pressure to succeed, succeed, succeed with an ivy league degree is often felt most acutely in areas of privilege, marked by wealth and whiteness. While pressure comes to all people in all demographics, it is no secret that those with particular advantage have a particular brand of unhappiness, evidenced by “disturbingly high rates of substance use, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, cheating, and stealing.” So what do we do now? I’m no expert at moving forward, but here are some things that have been helping me: 1. Normalize it You’re not alone. You’re normal. Your feelings are valid. I hope the information above has helped cement that. It’s hard for almost everyone. It sucks, and that’s normal and sucky. Graduation is a major life transition, and a “job search, change in relationships, [and] change in residence” are all things that cause everyone, regardless of age or circumstance, some anxiety. 2. Realize that having a plan or a job, moving, etc, may not fix it Depression and anxiety are real things, and while some people experience a lifting of symptoms with a change in circumstance, that’s not always the case. Hard things don’t always disappear. It’s important to recognize that and to focus on the feelings more than the circumstances. Often this focus will help provide a sense of control, as you tend to have a better grasp on your own inner workings than the inner workings of the HR firm at the company you applied to. 3. Get help If counseling is something financially/logistically possible for you, I recommend looking into it. It has helped me and a lot of other people. If you can get in to see a doctor, I recommend this also. They have a lot of resources you can’t find on the internet. If professional help is out of the question, talk to a friend or family member. It’s often really hard to do, especially the first time, but it’s important. 4. Take care of yourself Shower, eat, sleep, exercise, socialize. These things matter more than you know. If you’re capable of doing them, do them. I spent multiple days in a row this last summer in the same pair of pajamas, staring at my computer screen, job searching in desperation. It was awful. Don’t be me. 5. Do Something You Love Maybe you hate your job. Maybe you have no job. Maybe it's just meh. Regardless, you’re not spending your days doing something you love. Try to make time for things you do love -- hobbies and projects that bring you joy and fulfillment. If you like drawing or writing or running or building things in the garage, do those things. It helps to disassociate the core of your identity from your occupation and future prospects. Try to “create your own escapes from the mundane.” 6. Try Not to Play the Comparison Game You and your friend/classmate/cousin/etc. are different people. You aren’t living their life and they’re not living yours. That’s a good thing. If you must play the comparison game, I suggest looking up what some of today’s highly successful people were doing in their 20s. Tina Fey was working at a YMCA. Oprah was fired. Lin-Manuel Miranda was working the register at McDonald’s. #First7Jobs is an encouraging hashtag. Thanks to zhaolifang for the art!
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Rebecca Rose“There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.” Archives
March 2017
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