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I Graduated From College in 2019...Now What?

The Struggle for the Class of 2019 to Find a Career Path that Companies Are Willing to Give Them.

By Sam SanonPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
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I was lucky enough to graduate college with the class of 2019, right before shit hit the fan.

Graduating college in 4 years, as someone who hates school and always had learning difficulties growing up, was a massive accomplishment for me. I went on to take my Photography degree to the only place I felt like I could use it in the way I needed to - New York City. After studying photojournalism and documentary photography in school, New York seemed like the perfect place to achieve my digital art dreams.

New York is a tough city that will break your heart every single day while simultaneously showing you the best time of your life. I found employment at a retail job I love and continued perfecting my art form through an internship that has given me full creative control over my craft.

I began shaping my plans to elevate my career in the city. I slowly but surely gained experience and contacts to move my way up in the complicated social system that is finding a career in New York, and then, COVID19 came. When the Corona Virus first hit New York and spread rapidly, I packed up a suitcase, jumped on a plane, and headed back to my parent's house to stay for a couple of weeks until the virus blew over...or, so I thought.

It has now been three months since I evacuated to California to stay with my parents. Although I am grateful for the sanity I gain by not being stuck in an overpopulated city with an ever-growing death toll, I look at my paused career path and wonder...what do I do now?

Over the past year, I have watched other members of the class of 2019 figure out their way into the job force with little to no luck. I've seen Computer Science, and English majors alike graduate with their 4-year degrees and instantly get rejected because of their lack of "experience", winding up working at grocery stores, local coffee shops, and gyms. Not to discredit these positions, since I too have found myself in a retail job after thousands of dollars spent on higher education, and hundreds of hours spent filling out LinkedIn applications.

My main question is, why? Why is this happening to us? Even now, in an economy worse than the one we vaguely remember under the Bush administration, we are turned away, or not given a chance to level up in the career world that was promised to us for four long, expensive years. As a recent college graduate, you can assume that when applying to an "entry-level" job, you would be a top priority because of the new knowledge you have recently obtained from your degree. Your excitement to envelop yourself in this new career world after years of working unpaid internships and minimum wage jobs in between college courses is suddenly unavailable to you because you don't have the "right" amount of experience.

Right now is the perfect time for all of this to change. The class of 2019 was the last class to have a full, in-person education. We've heard the stories of how hard it's been for the class of 2020 to learn online, and although we obviously can't fault them for the pandemic being the reason higher education has gotten harder to learn and teach all together, it should elevate those who were able to obtain information and gain experience in person. I encourage companies to look beyond the resume and cover letter and to get to know the candidates that interest you. Every day we as a society are teaching ourselves new ways to learn new skills and techniques. So why aren't we giving the hard workers and fast learners a chance to prove themselves just because they don't have the perfect amount of job experience? Seek out those who apply to a position with the time and passion to learn a new skill or teach themselves a new form of software in this extended time spent indoors. Now is the time to invest in the class of 2019, while we await our unemployment checks in our parent's homes.

goals
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About the Creator

Sam Sanon

photographer // trash tv connoisseur // dyslexic bad bitch

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