Return to Sender: Pomp and Circumstance

To our readers: This week’s column is going to be a more personal one – as will, I’m sure, the next two or three. You see, I’m getting ready to finish my B.A. Which is, understandably, just about the only thing on my mind. Feel free to scroll down if things feel too self-indulgent or Penn-centric for you. Graduation is two weeks from Monday, and I’m sure this mood will pass shortly thereafter.

Dear Everyone:

Yes. I am graduating on May 15th. With a degree from a prestigious Ivy League University. In what? Oh, I’m getting a Bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. My minor? Psychology. What am I doing after graduation? I really don’t know. So please stop asking. I’ll let you know when the answer changes.

No, I am not moving to New York. No, I do not want to teach high school. No, I don’t plan on moving in with my parents again. No, I haven’t got a place to stay after my lease expires on May 25th.

It’s not that I’m lazy. I had to finish this thing called my thesis. I needed to finish it so that I could graduate with honors, which wouldn’t be so important if I wasn’t planning on applying to graduate school someday. A hundred and forty-two pages and several moths later, the thesis is turned in and the job search has begun. I’m not looking in Philadelphia specifically, although I wouldn’t mind sticking around here a few more years. If someone would only hire me.

Let me reiterate now: I do not have a job yet. I don’t even have a city to move to planned. Hell, I don’t even have a region in mind. (I just know where I don’t want to live – and that’s good for starters, right?) I know that time’s running out, that there are exactly sixteen days till graduation and approximately twenty-five till my apartment has to be completely vacated. I don’t need to be reminded.

The nice woman who sends me lots of e-mails from Penn Career Services assures me – and the majority of my graduating class – that it’s okay if we don’t have jobs yet. That it’s perfectly normal. I think I’m going to start printing business card-sized copies of her letter and handing them to anyone who asks me what my post-grad plans are. It’ll keep me from going hoarse repeating myself.

Look: the plan right now is not to have a plan. I am going to take my finals, finish my projects, and enjoy my last two weeks as a Quaker undergrad. I will be looking for jobs and posting resumes throughout that time. And yes, it’s scary not knowing where I’ll be this time next month. But you don’t have to keep rubbing it in. I can scare myself just fine.