In certain circles, it’s actually become cool to be out of college and jobless. Sure, everybody wants to rule the world, but to say, “I’m unemployed” has a certain cache that “I work as an administrative assistant” doesn’t.
The reason why it is cool to be unemployed stems from a few factors. One, you didn’t look for jobs while you were in college; two, you didn’t get any job offers; and three, you’re just not willing to settle for a position as busboy at your local deli. Your parents are probably paying for your food and rent, so you really don’t have any motivation to seek employment, and you feel that you’re entitled to a year or two away from brainwork.
Let’s face it: it’s cool to be lazy, and if you’re not lazy, the job market is still terrible, so it doesn’t matter. It’s not cool to look for a job while you’re in school. And it’s cool not to have a job when you’re out of school… at least for a while. I’ve looked into this, and I’ve found that the only problem is that you cannot start getting unemployment checks until after you’ve been employed for a while. It’s like a Catch-22. If you have a job out of college, it’s either because you actually sent out your resumes early in your last semester, or because your dad got you a job. Your peers see both avenues as lame. So, if you want to be cool, don’t look for a job-ever. Just sit in your apartment, play Sims, and order in Chinese food.
Jobs are so uncool. If you have a job, that means you’re, like, old or something. You might as well start listening to Phil Collins and drinking decaffeinated coffee from International House. Su, Su, Sudia…you catch my drift. So what can you do? How about grad school? You can just go to a university where all of the undergrads will think you’re lame for not having found an incredible career path straight out of college that you wanted to stick to forever. You could go abroad and do the whole backpacking across Europe thing and get hit on by tons of Greek and Spanish men in techno clubs and drink black coffee all day, Malibu and Fanta all night.
But why look beyond the confines of your own apartment? You can order DVDs online and begin to explore the cinematic world while eating Orville whatever 97 percent fat-free popcorn. You can read Cosmo and Maxim, while playing Quake, or even Wario. The list goes on and on. But don’t take my word for it-talk to recently unemployed WU students. In fact, there really should be a panel of them to speak at an Assembly Series. In addition to the Career Center, we should have an “Unemployed Center,” because unemployed is what a lot of recent WU grads are right now.
The Unemployed Center could have daily group sessions where unemployed grads get together and discuss how to find free refreshments around town, the best way to approach your parents about sending you money, and computer hacking. Instead of holding an “Etiquette Dinner,” they could hold an “Etiquette for Continuous Snacking.” Also, you could have the chance to network with other unemployed WU graduates. The business cards would look a little different, since they would be made of mainly napkins (maybe with sweet and sour sauce stains) and the backs of receipts. Why not just embrace unemployment?
The sarcastic tone of this column is meant to convey that something needs to be done about the fact that WU students who have worked their butts off for the duration of their education are not finding jobs in their fields of interest. Here’s one suggestion that could contribute to remedying the situation: in addition to looking for jobs, people can start being their own bosses and embark on some sort of individual projects, or entrepreneurship in conjunction with other graduates-it’s good for us, and it will help create more jobs. It would be even better if there were a board created by WU of people who were willing to invest in recently graduated WU students. There would be a careful process in which they filter the feasible ideas from the absolutely ludicrous ones that are obviously jokes (like most of this column), so there would be very little risk factor. That way, instead of playing Minesweeper all day, we could be designing the inner workings of the next great video game for future generations.