Have a diploma, and some debt too

You’ve ordered your cap and gown, your parents already booked a hotel for graduation, and, in… You’ve ordered your cap and gown, your parents already booked a hotel for graduation, and, in a few months, you’ll never have to deal with midterms or finals again. Pretty soon you’ll be working your dream job and buying IKEA furniture. Freedom is on the horizon, and you’re reaching the end of the rainbow.

Only, for our generation, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is filled with tens of thousands of dollars of loan debt, very few jobs, highly competitive graduate schools and an application to work at Starbucks.

Before you know it, you’ll be moving back home with the parents, making lattes and mochas eight hours a day, and dodging questions from friends and family members about what you want to do with your life. You’ll meet up with your other friends who also moved back home and share college stories while getting drunk with people who are your parents’ age. They may be in a midlife crisis, but you’re in a quarter-life crisis.

It’ll never happen to you, right? I never thought it would happen to me, but as my December graduation approaches and more and more of my friends move back home and settle for jobs they hate, I keep worrying that the same fate may await me.

I know very few people who have a clear plan for after graduation, but a lot of people whose plans backfired when they didn’t get into grad school or messed up a job interview. I have several ideas, but no clear plan aside from not moving back home and not selling out to corporate America.

There are statistics, books and plays to back up these trends for our generation. According to a 2003 study, we’ll face a college loan debt 85 percent higher than people who graduated college only a decade ago. The book “Quaterlife Crisis” spawned a Web site and a following of 20-somethings who are disappointed with their lives.

Broadway has an award-winning musical, “Avenue Q,” staring 20-something puppets who sing and dance to songs such as “I Wish I Could Go Back to College,” “There Is Life Outside Your Apartment,” and my personal favorite, “What Do You Do With a BA in English?”

The lyrics speak to many of us: “I can’t pay the bills yet/ ‘Cause I have no skills yet/ The world is a big, scary place / But somehow I can’t shake/ The feeling I might make/ A difference/ To the human race.”

We all have high expectations of ourselves; we double majored, worked part-time all through college, joined organizations and took on leadership roles, interned and volunteered, all while adjusting to living away from home, doing keg-stands and trying to figure out what we really want from life.

We get through it all, and expect that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The only problem is, we don’t know what is in that pot of gold: Is it that dream job, law school or family? What if that dream job sucks and law school is $60,000 too much?

People on the quaterlifecrisis.com message board support each other through these times of crisis:

“I need to be more confident. Anyway, I have two interviews and a nursing program meeting next week so things are perking up a bit. It’s just so frustrating to be unemployed.”

“I don’t feel like I have the skills to break into ANY field besides library stuff (given my current and only job), and I don’t want to do that! Plus, most jobs you need a masters in lib.sci!”

“I’ve applied at places, gotten interviews, even offers, but for WAY less than I make now. I’m starting to resign myself to the fact that I will always work here.”

“Sometimes I wake up in the morning thinking that it’s just not worth it, if I am myself on my way to becoming a welfare case.”

So as I approach my quarter-life crisis, I wonder, will I be posting in a few months?

As I revise my resume, search for jobs online, iron my suit, and dodge those questions about my future, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by a mixture of feelings — a mixture of uncertainty, excitement, restlessness and fear.

Freshmen, enjoy stressing over what classes to take and who you made out with at the frat party. We old folks will huddle together in shelters for those in crisis (i.e. bars) worrying about graduate school applications and whether or not that dream job has a 401(K) plan and dental benefits, bracing ourselves for the oncoming real world.

E-mail Jen Stephan at jls259@pitt.edu.