Memoirs of a 2020 College Graduate: Part 1

Virtual celebration for the 2020 graduates, both undergrad and grad students

The onset of the COVID-19 virus changed the world as society plunged into quarantine, turning the world upside down— etc., etc.

The hottest tagline for any writer or introspective overthinker (they’re synonyms), we know the pandemic shifted a considerable amount in all our lives. They were all stamped by loss. The loss of hundreds and thousands of lives, the loss of opportunity, the loss of community, identity, purpose, and self. Save for the first example, the results of the pandemic mirror the loss felt after moving to a new place, losing a job, and, in my case, graduating college. The pandemic only exacerbated the feeling.

I’m one of many “pandemic graduates,” an involuntary participant in the rush towards remote learning, the lack of career prospects, and the destruction of an intimate, microscopic community. In March of 2020, it appeared that everything I had worked towards in my professional and personal life would soon become invaluable. These feelings clashed with my lack of “real-life experience,” the sixteen years of harsh realism our education sometimes shelters us from. So I hid in my loneliness, holding on to scheduled “Zoom hangouts” with my peers marked by both slow wifi connections and missed personal connections.

We took our graduation photos the same day we first saw each other since the pandemic started: when we had to move out of our shared apartment.

But even more pressing was the Future. My Future. Since I was a young girl, I always strived for the perfect Future and stayed one step ahead at all times. I remember my beaming pride when my 20-something middle school teacher told me, “Your resume is longer than mine.” Does that illustrate my overzealous and eager ambition? I was/am an overachiever because I fear/ed failure and revel/ed in attention.

In my freshman year of college, I fixated on a career. The goal kept changing, of course, as I changed majors, but I always looked for the next course of action no matter what path I chose. If I wanted to be involved in the film industry, I planned out my internships. When I pivoted to being a psychologist, I sought out undergraduate research opportunities. Every summer filled itself with positions— paid and unpaid—to pad my career somewhere. Every school year, I had a part-time job, from a personal assistant where I earned cash sous la table to a part-time marketing position in a cubicle. I epitomized “hustle culture” because I loved being busy and lauded “the grind.”

You can imagine the agony and loss I felt in June of 2020, when school no longer occupied my time and I was out in the real world.

I always feared the possibility, even sans pandemic, that I wouldn’t have a job lined up after graduation. I remember seeing individuals I had looked up to, three or four years my senior, hopping from job to job. I would think, “I’ll never be like that. I won’t let myself do that.” In retrospect, my snobbish perspective came from my constant fear of failure.

And yet it happened. My S.O., three years my senior, reassured me that the “post-graduate depression” of losing community and feeling lost on the next steps were normal. I just had to be patient.

But patience was never my strong suit. Instead, I let anxiety fester into my every fiber, exacerbated by the world around me: a global pandemic, a reckoning of social justice in this country, a political divide. To put it simply: this sh*t sucked.

One July afternoon, I visited a famous bookstore in Los Angeles. I’m an avid reader (and collector) of books, and I came upon some nonfiction pieces. Their genres varied into finance, social justice, and psychology/philosophy. Something in me decided to purchase the three copies to give myself “homework.” If I couldn’t control my professional life, at the very least I could nurture my financial, political, and personal journey.

I’m going to be honest, I only read one of the three books I purchased.

However, it was the act of doing something that later catapulted me into my three jobs, a stint in freelance, and my current full-time. I don’t think I would be in the mindset and career I am now if not for the pandemic dramatizing my post-graduate journey.

I know that an alternate version of myself would be less happy, and less intuitive, about what felt best for her.

This Medium article series will detail my experience of the classic post-graduate journey, made even more tumultuous by a global pandemic.

One hope is that this series gives working professionals more insight into the Great Resignation/Reshuffle.

Another hope might just be for me to document this chapter in my life, and if so, thank you for giving me the space to self-indulge.

But my main hope is for college undergraduates and recent grads to feel comforted in knowing that the unknown is quite alright. You’re not alone. And that every opportunity is just the intersection of work, timing, and a sprinkle of luck.