I’m an English major who likes to write. My decisions to minor in cinema and Italian were purely based on hobby and a “why not?” question. I’ve fantasized about winning an Oscar for best screenplay because when that woman won for “Juno” — the one who used to be a stripper — I felt some hope. I’m not a stripper, but I’m also not a girl studying to write the best screenplay.
I’m studying the things I like with no clear goal in mind because I refuse to sit through classes that I have no interest in taking. I hate numbers, science is beyond me and I can memorize only as well as I juggle. I can’t juggle at all.
Suffice it to say I took the insane, yet sane approach to college. I may not have employers lining up for my rèsumè, but I know and understand that I made a decision to study, let’s say, the fun stuff. Fun for me, anyway, and far saner than biology or economics.
My plan is to go out in the world, penniless and at first living at home, applying to any remotely related, paid or unpaid internship until something with a beating heart and promise tells me I’m more than just an intern. Networking is the real thing.
This year I have observed new stress. I have witnessed students rigorously trying to adhere to the plan they’ve had since freshman year or high school even, students in management and business (school, apply, move out, job), pre-med (med school, med school, med school) or even other liberal arts majors who have resorted to good old grad school.
I support all of them. Bravissimi, I say! But I do also want to point out, maybe out of selfishness or in personal support, that you don’t always need a plan. Stuff one of those other plans in my head and I’d fall into a permanent coma.
Graduate and seek opportunities and earn money somehow, yes. But you don’t need to, if you don’t really want to, settle down to your permanent fate immediately after graduation.
I at least feel like I have some “me time.” Time disappears — “like a fart in the wind,” to quote “The Shawshank Redemption” — so to waste these precious moments is like a crime against nature, a crime against happiness.
I’ve been stressed every day since the eighth grade, and I think I deserve a break. There should be mandated days at universities, just a couple, where students are forbidden to work and told to take up a hobby or practice one they already have. Lose your spark or your creativity; you’ve got nothing.
If you have been planning and lucky enough to snag that job, I congratulate you, but I also urge you to perform that job with enthusiasm. If you’re an experience-seeker and hopeful like me, go at it with a smile. Someday, a penny will show up in your pocket, and it will be a penny well-earned.