Excerpt



Finally, the day had come. I took my diploma in one hand and used the other to shake the hand of the University’s President. As hundreds of onlookers watched, I was basking in the moment and all the while scared to death of what lay ahead of me. My college days were now over and I couldn’t help but wonder why the relevance of it all hadn’t hit me sooner. Sure, college or any type of vocational training is as an excellent starting point for the development of a career, but it does not mean that you’ll be any closer to those endeavors once the curtain closes and the confetti has hit its mark on the stadium floor. Simple submission to these opportunities will not grant you some secret pass to an underground society that points you in the direction you should go. In a perfect world, this would be the case, but in reality, the message about professional responsibility must have fallen on deaf ears.

My misunderstanding about one’s personal responsibility in securing success was formulated at a young age. My parents were not college graduates, but they stressed the importance of education to me and my brothers. In doing so, I always strived to excel academically and learned early on the benefits of being an “exceptional” student. “Exceptional” students always had in-school favor and never had to aggressively pursue anything they wanted to be involved in. They were always the program speakers, the leading characters in school plays and even the appointed authority when the teacher stepped out of the classroom. I wanted to enjoy this favor and to know that it all stemmed from just a little hard work made the sacrifice that much easier. To me, such gravitating responses solidified the idea that being “exceptional” was synonymous with being successful. From that point, my only responsibility was to get an education so I could enjoy automatic success.

By the time I reached high school, I realized college wasn’t the only place that groomed professionals, but the people who went sold it very well. They always seemed so busy and so important, coming from one engagement and heading to another. To a young person, blind to the apparent pressures of such a “busy” life, this exuded power and popularity. Now, I had even more reason to be anxious and excited. I’d graduated college and it was finally my turn to be busy and important. Surprisingly, I was neither.

Now, let’s fast forward a little beyond graduation. You’re armed with one of the most expensive pieces of paper you’ll probably ever have and professional responsibility is staring you square in the face. If there is no promise of employment lined up, what do you do? Do you immediately jump in the rat race of job hunting? What if your interests have since changed or the type of degree you’ve earned has minimal demand? Where do you start? Well, this is where I was. One minute I was celebrating one of the most exciting accomplishments of my life and the next I felt like I had been thrown to the wolves. There were no professors or advisors to guide me. There was no longer anyone I could consult with about how to handle my future. I was alone to fend for myself and to approve my own direction. Before I could even begin to sift through the haze, I was already mentally exhausted. Clearly, I had made a severe mistake. My procrastination in making the business community aware of me had cost me job security and ensured that I would have plenty of lost ground to make up for.

At this point, I just wanted to shout, “I’m here,” to Corporate America and I probably would have if it wasn’t for the fear that tumbleweeds would overtake me in the dead silence. To add to my frustration, I listened to how some of my friends and former classmates struggled to find their own niches. Some, of whom, had financially burdened themselves because they believed in a professional payoff. It seemed like I couldn’t find comfort in anything or anyone. I was angry. I was angry at the possibility of being a negative collegiate statistic. I was angry at the thought of being the poster child for “what not to do” to be successful. I also felt overwhelmed by the thought of trying to accomplish all the goals I had set for myself. The emotion that was most prevalent, however, was worry. I worried that I would not be able to live up to my expectations or the expectations of those around me. I worried that my future as a professional had been compromised and I worried that everything I dreamed for myself would somehow be crushed by failure.

My first course of action was to call a few of the contacts I had, those being the names of employers rumored to be hiring. Since these people had no prior knowledge of my existence, they were a bit skeptical to say the least. This skepticism became routine and was soon the coaxing force behind the idea of being an educated “could have been.” Since I didn’t want to admit to my own faults, I needed something to blame. I began to question my choice of pursuing higher education, and challenged whether it actually taught me something unique about being successful. I attempted to compress the whole experience into a single thought in hopes of validating my choices. For me, the answer would serve as reassurance of the importance of earning my degree and that paying back those student loans constituted a fair trade. Basically, if I could not see the benefit in my sacrifice of time and money, then this decision actually cost me more than what the government was trying to collect.