By Jamie Wright

When I graduated college, I thought things would be like how they were for Rory Gilmore. I didn’t think that I’d be working on Barack Obama’s campaign trail, but I did think that I would be able to find a job in my field pretty quickly. I knew I wouldn’t be walking across a stage for graduation due to the pandemic. So instead, I sat on my basement floor in my pajamas and listened as an automated voice read my name aloud. And then I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. I decided to give myself a “winter break.” I wasn’t going to start looking for jobs until after New Year’s Day. Thankfully the first day of 2021 was a Friday, so I still had the weekend to be completely oblivious to the task that lay before me: finding employment.

I quickly learned that LinkedIn is my enemy. Sitting in front of a computer screen scrolling through the same 100 or so jobs feels crushing. With every job having at least 50 applicants, it makes you wonder if anyone is even taking the time to look at your resume and cover letter. It also doesn’t help that LinkedIn is another form of social media. People can make posts updating (bragging?) to their connections about their latest internship or job opportunity. It feels impossible to not compare yourself to friends from high school and university who are doing big things. I’m grateful for the freedom the last few months has given me and I wonder why I am in such a rush to get a 9 to 5, but comparison has made itself known as another green-eyed monster.

After being in school for 17 years of my life, leaving something that feels familiar will leave anybody lost. Who am I if not a student? Who am I without receiving the constant validation of an A paper? I found my self-worth in and defined myself by getting straight A’s and without that, I’m not sure what to do. Everything I do doesn’t feel as productive as doing homework or as getting a 100 on a discussion question did. As someone who has based their entire personality on being “a pleasure to have in class,” being out of school feels foreign to me.

Besides questioning how people live their lives without school structure, I also wonder: how do you find employment in the middle of a pandemic? The one good thing about looking for a job right now is that most of them are remote. I’m applying to companies in New York City and Los Angeles from a suburb not even close to either city. It’s wonderful. However, because those jobs are remote and are available to people all across the world, it’s not unusual for me to see that 100 or so people have also applied for the job. I don’t hear anything back unless it’s a confirmation email telling me that “due to the high volume of applicants, we cannot get back to everyone so any further emails will only be about the interview process.”

Sometimes it feels like not getting a job immediately could be a negative impact of social media and the instant gratification it rewards us with. Sometimes it feels like an undergraduate degree isn’t as important as it used to be and master's degrees are what employers are looking for. All of these changes graduates are experiencing right now can lead towards post-graduation depression or post-college depression. Graduates right now are leaving college with even less of a sense of what the future will look like and I understand how easy it could be to fall down the rabbit hole of rejections and comparison. Yet, I believe in a brighter side because I am eternally optimistic. I’ve also realized that our sense of self or our successes should not solely be career or school based. I blame capitalism for instilling that belief system in us. Genuinely, I would rather hear about someone growing their own garden rather than see another LinkedIn post about marketing analytics.

It’s hard to not feel alone in this search. Making to-do lists for little tasks and checking the box off when it’s done makes me feel better though. So does nachos, reading and Gilmore Girls. All of us are stepping into uncertainty in the next phase of our lives, maybe even a little bit more than usual. As I spend my time applying to jobs and waiting for a response, I feel less like Yale-graduate Rory Gilmore and more like Rory Gilmore in the reboot: trying to find herself amidst the chaos of life (and a pandemic).

Tales From a Post-Grad Pandemic

By Jamie Wright