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Being a student is a truly wonderful thing.
At no other time in your life will you ever enjoy this much freedom. It's absurd how much free time we have. We spend an incalculable number of hours in lecture halls, classrooms and meeting rooms discussing ideas. We live in our own manufactured utopia, unaware (or perhaps simply ignoring) what may lie ahead for us in the future.
Of course, it's not all fun and games. We live in abject poverty. We spend much of our "free time" staring either at computer screens, whistling along to a rancid, butchered remix of Dido's "Thank You" at Alfie's on Thursday nights, or doing all 500 pages of reading that your professors have planned for you each week.
Yet many fourth year students have begun to ponder an inevitable, hair-raising reality: what happens after Convocation?
For some of us, we're taking the road back towards higher education. For others, we're taking a "year off" before we decide to crawl back into the nurturing arms of academia. And still others are taking the greatest leap of faith of all: finding full-time employment.
Making this transition from school-to-work is a lot like when you first came to university; you're no longer in the protective shelter of childhood-time to move onto bigger and better things.
Indeed, after being in an institutional environment for your entire life thus far, this transition can also be akin to a cold shower. It is a shock that hits you very hard, very fast. Faster than the four years you spend here, that's for sure.
Earlier this year, many people I know added another course to their slate of activities at Queen's-Job Hunt 500: Self-Directed Studies (don't even bother looking in the Course Calendar for this one). And, generally speaking, you can sum up the job hunt as follows: it's not easy out there, but it could be a heck of a lot worse.
As the saying goes during Frosh Week, what do Arts students end up doing upon graduation? McDonald's, McDonald's, McDonald's. Well, you can now throw Commerce students into that mix, given that most economic forecasts are not exactly rosy.
This applies to employment opportunities as well, for [Insert Company Here] isn't hiring this economic quarter because of [Insert Economic Crisis Here] and the [Insert expletives about Bank of Canada, low Canadian dollar and Enron here], causing massive shockwaves in the [Insert Stock Exchange Here].
Yes, it is a tough time to being going out into the world to find your dream job. Naturally, one could blame 9/11 for this, but that is a very bad reason to be frustrated with a lack of entry-level positions in Corporate Canada. You could also blame heavy competition in a world that is moving increasingly towards the financial bottom line.
Whatever the reasons may be that jobs above being an office assistant are slim pickings these days, people should remain cautiously optimistic.
I say cautiously because living a very frugal existence is, for most people used to their middle-class lifestyle, a hard thing to deal with for an extended period of time. Okay, the gloves are off: people usually want their degrees to pay off-literally. Nobody coughs up over $30,000 over four years to be left on the unemployment line, or so the theory goes.
For some of us, we will retreat back to school to wait out the economic turmoil. For others, we'll carry on as long as we can. Yet while we hold on, working on essays, assignments and writing cover letters for that next job interview, we can still count on a few things to be there for us, even after that day in May when we receive our diplomas.
Our families will be there for us. Change is part of our daily lives-get used to it. And in spite of every worry we may have about the future, you can always count on the fact that things will always work out.
Lastly, we can count on one all-important thing: school will always be there, waiting to invite us back in with open arms.
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Greg Hughes
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Comments
Refreshing! Taiwo Sobande | Oct 3rd, 2003
I love your articles. It' worth reflecting when one is still in the system. It might to prepare better for "what comes next"
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