When choosing a career for yourself, you think about two things: One, you think about what you like to do. Do you enjoy being around people all day? Maybe it's that you love arts and crafts. Second, you think about what skills you've acquired, be it from school or from life. Are you good at analyzing situations? Maybe your specialty is creating peace between two competing forces. Can you correct a sentence like no other? Are you good at teaching a skill? Kids? Street smarts? Or is it that you're really good at selling things? For me, it all came down to one, simple question: What do you do with a degree in English? I've asked myself this question almost every day for the past three years and I still don't have an answer.
When I graduated from college, aside from the normal grunts and groans of "get a job," I think the first thing someone asked me was "Well…" and then an Expectant Pause. "What are you going to do with your life?" For some reason, throughout my five years at college, whenever I heard this question, I always had some witty and sarcastic reply ready, like "Oh, you know, you'll find me over on that street corner, in my box." We had a good laugh and the topic was usually changed. I didn't take it seriously, but then again, I didn't know too many college students who took anything seriously. Not speaking for anyone else, I never took it seriously because I figured that when I finally graduated, I'd have it all figured out because I'd be an Adult. Adults can make decisions. Adults know what they want, when they want it and how to get it. Adults don't eat cream cheese and jelly on mini-bagels, nor do they gulp down hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream. In their pajamas. And when they do wear pajamas, it's something sophisticated like plaid or polka dots, not Happy Bunny or cute purple puppies.
Clearly, I was not an Adult. Sure, I was 22 years young, but when I wasn't at school, I was still living in the house I grew up in, across the hall from my parents' bedroom. I wore giant pink bunny slippers, sweatpants and my boyfriend's oversized sweatshirts. My mother made me dinner and my father did my laundry. This isn't in any way their fault – of course you want to make life as comfortable as possible for your children, the fruit of your loins – but partially because of this, I still felt like a child. In being treated like a child, in feeling like a child, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make that transition to adulthood the longer you stay in that situation. Three years later, I'm still in that situation. It's a dangerous choice to make: Do you spend every penny you have, still in debt from all those student loans, just so you can see your parents only on the holidays? Do you scrounge and save, live at home and be treated like a child? I thought it was a no-brainer. I was broke, I had been an English major and I was $23,000 in debt with student loans. I went home to my mommy and daddy. So what if I couldn't come and go as I pleased? So what if I still wore my old blue robe with yellow ducks? I could do whatever I wanted in my own little space of a room, and also, when I was sick, I knew I'd automatically have someone to take care of me.
But, still, the question of qualifications plagued me. It followed me everywhere I went, through every classified ad I read. It followed me through everything I wasn't qualified to do, through meals and movies and long sessions spent at Friendly's gorging myself on ice cream because I had no qualifications.
If it were up to me, I'd create a game show. It'd be called "Choose a Career: The Wheel of Fortune." How great would that be? You go through all of your schooling, or not, and then get a spot on the show. Each "contestant" would come up, bright eyed and bushy tailed, to the Career Wheel, a mystical force that would head you off toward, guide you to, your next step in life, your life's purpose. You don't end up spending years of your precious life at an unsatisfying job, wasting your days away until you choose what you should've chosen years ago. You don't have to dig down, deep inside, soul-search your innermost wishes to find out what you really want to do with yourself, what you're actually qualified to do. You can't be disappointed in yourself because, hey, you didn't choose it, the Career Wheel did.
It's not like I hadn't tried a few "careers" out. In my short time out of college, I had been a receptionist at a sign company where I was given a 20-minute break everyday, no benefits and where I had to baby-sit the boss' children. I had been a substitute teacher at my old high school where the students would curse at me in Spanish when I told them I didn't care that their friend was waiting for them in the hallway. I had been a talent agency intern. I had been a personal assistant and later, an office manager, at a commercial real estate firm. At least I knew what I didn't want to do.
Which leads me back to the beginning and again, we have the question of: What do you do with a degree in English? What were my skills? I could write a sentence. I could edit that sentence. I could read. A lot. I was well-versed in ready entire 500-page books in two days. I was also really good at pretending like I had some really deep thoughts about it, when all I was really thinking was "Does this book make my thighs look big?" I could teach, but I'd soured on that a long time ago. I'm creative. I'm excellent at organizing. I write well. I'm moody and sometimes dramatic. I really like to write. I'm good at solving problems, proofreading, editing, researching and assisting people. I feel stifled sitting in a corporate environment 40 hours a week. Sometimes I think that what's served in the cafeteria is more important than the actual work I'm doing. I have no business skills, but I can act. And I can read. I will find something, something that suits me in more ways that I could ever imagine. Something that will give me freedom, creativity, good food and a non-stifling environment. But even if I end up taking a job as something else, something I never intended, or even if it's almost everything I intended, this time, it will make me happy. One day, when I least expect it, I might even become one of those Adults I speak about with such distance.
I am going to keep my Happy Bunny pajamas.
Laurie Pasternack is a 25 year old graduate of Binghamton University, a prestigious college located in upstate New York. She is looking for a career in the writing, arts and entertainment field as a freelance writer, proofreader or copywriter. |
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