If you’re like me, then it was beaten into your head early on that you need to go to college, get an education, so you can be successful and make a living in this world.
…how did that pan out for you?
—Everybody—
Raise your hand if you’re still in student loan debt! *raises hand*
Raise your hand if you just took the first job out of college that you could get knowing that it paid diddly? *raises hand*
Raise your hand if you are not in the place financially that you thought you would be in? *sheepishly raises hand*
wtf, mate? What happened? The reason you crammed for that test, or spent those extra hours writing those term paper was to get good grades, to get that degree, to get that good job. My twenty-something friends… I think we’ve been bamboozled.
Society tricked me. Teacher/ Professors tricked me. Lauren Conrad and the rest of the Hills Cast tricked me. Now they’re tricking everyone else into think you will just “fall” into a dream job out of college.
This is not to say I’m in the poor house. I’m sure others are worse off. At this stage of my life, I was anticipating putting down a down payment for a house. Now I’m focused on having enough for the baby, enough for the rent, and enough for “just-in-case” savings.
I have to wonder why my expectations were sent so high. Before our generation, it was the norm for people to enter the workforce at an “apprentice” level aka you’re the bottom of the totem poll. I thought I had anticipated this by signing up for all those unpaid internships.And it’s not like I blew my money on random crap. I am actually quite frugal. “Life” just got in the way. A wedding, a dog, crappy cars, all added up to being in my mid-20s and STILL having a crap-ton of student loan debt. In college, I was actually expecting to apply to grad school when I hit 25.
…wrong.
Who’s to blame? Me, society, the economy, Lauren Conrad (seriously, wasn’t she like a C- student, how did she get an internship at Vogue?)
I’m slowly but surely digging myself out of this hole. One frickin slow shovel dig at a time.