Most seniors find their final year in college to be a mixed bag.
Senior year brings with it three years of Chapel Hill know-how so that you can spend your last months of college doing what you most enjoy and with whomever you want. But it’s also your last big dance.
It’s your last Halloween on Franklin Street and your last season to enjoy Carolina vs. Duke basketball games as a student.
Senior year is fun. But it’s also complex enough without having to stress out about what you’ll be doing with your life a year from now.
The fact that we’re in a recession intensifies this pressure.
The job outlook in America is still poor.
On top of that, enrollment in graduate programs increases during harsh economic times because more students choose to attend graduate school rather than enter an uncertain job market.
This isn’t good news for students applying to graduate school for next fall.
With more applicants from both the layoff-ridden work force and graduating seniors, admission to graduate schools for fall 2010 will be very selective.
So much for grad school being the most straightforward delay tactic into the real world.
I have met a good number of first-year graduate students in New Orleans who told me they would not have considered graduate school so early in their lives if more jobs had been available after graduation.
I’ve also talked to people who graduated last spring and are disappointed that they haven’t landed a better job since taking the tough plunge into the work force.
Disillusioned that their entrance into the working world hasn’t already paid off, some have applied to graduate school for this fall.
They rationalize that a graduate degree is the “new undergraduate degree” — or, to put it another way, a prerequisite for a good job these days.
I’m agreeing more and more with that statement as the weeks go by.
It’s unfortunate that we’re graduating during harsh economic times, but hopefully that fact will only be a glitch in the holistic picture of our college experience.
When we’re 50 years old and reminiscing with friends over the college “good life,” we’ll look back and remember Spring Break road trips before we think of the extra stress brought upon us by graduating amidst a pathetic job market.
It’d be a lot easier if we could just all stay at Carolina as seniors forever, or at least for a few extra years until the recession recedes. Sadly, that’s not the case.
When figuring out what you’ll be doing a year from now, you’ll likely have to explore all your options and be unafraid to try something new.
That “something new” may be a full-time job, graduate school, or it may be working or interning for a year before going back to school or searching for a new job.
If you really want to change things up, teach abroad for a year, join AmeriCorps or work on a cruise ship.
Why not?
There is a plethora of options, you just have to figure out what would work best for you and go for it.
Lea Luquire is a senior Spanish major from Yancyville spending the semester in New Orleans. Contact Lea Luquire at Llea@email.unc.edu
