I Graduated From University During a Pandemic; Here’s What Happened.
Trigger Warning, this story contains content about suicide.
March 19th of 2020 I was leading a college Spring Break service trip to Nashville, TN when I received a call from my organization’s director instructing me to return back to my university by 5pm the following day. According to her, the entire state was closing down due to a deadly unknown virus. I was confused, upset, angry, and stressed; I had spent an entire year planning a trip to Nashville, TN which included getting free housing, finding partners, budgeting gas and food, and even teaching the participating students about the topic. It was an entire year of stress that was cancelled in the span of a 5 minute phone call. Begrudgingly, I had to sporadically cancel the remaining service opportunities, cancel the housing agreement, as well as force my participants to pack up and get ready to head out the next morning. After a grueling mornin, I returned back to my university exhausted and ready to relax since the university decided it would shut down for two weeks; I figured I would go back home to the beach and use the two weeks to catch up on homework, rest and relaxation, and those unwatched popular Netflix shows. What I didn’t know then was the moment I had left my university, it would be the last time I would walk across my campus. It would be the last time I would see my friends in person. It would be the last time I would sit in a classroom and roll my eyes as my teacher assigned 80 pages of reading to be due the next class period. I was going home, and little did I know, I was going to stay at home.
Coming home those first couple of weeks was the remedy I needed to a stressful college experience. However, those two weeks turned into months, which then turned into an entire year. By the time I graduated from what became known as “Zoom University”, which was concluded by an “online graduation” (it was a pre-recorded video with a list of names rolling across a screen in “Star Wars: A New Hope” credit fashion), I was so tired of living at home with my parents. It sounds ungrateful, but going from living in a dorm with one other person, not having a curfew, living on your own, and not having someone ask you questions every time you are either leaving or doing something within the confines of your home is a completely different experience than living at home with your parents. Every time I would leave, they would ask what time I would be back. Every time I would walk out of my room, they asked me what I was doing. I literally couldn’t even go to the bathroom without someone saying something about it. Thus, living at home with my parents turned into the most aggravating experience during and after college. During this same time, I discovered the career I initially went to college to prepare for wasn’t the career I actually wanted to have. I didn’t want to go law school at all. I don’t know if it was due to the fact the pandemic and global shut down contributed to a mental slump, or if the pandemic shone a bright light I kept avoiding for the entire four years of my undergraduate career. Whatever it was, I couldn’t avoid it any longer and decided I wasn’t going to to attend law school, causing me to graduate with a liberal arts major (psychology apparently is considered liberal arts) with no intentions of furthering my education into professional psychology or medical school. This brought me to my first revelation, I had no idea what I wanted to do. and even if I did, I can’t do it because the ENTIRE COUNTRY is shut down. So, what did I do, I went to work.
Interviewing for jobs where you are apparently “overqualified” is the most annoying process ever. First, you submit an application, then a person calls you to set up an interview. Finally, they realize after you have arrived and interviewed you are overqualified for the job and they no longer wish to hire you. My issue, why couldn’t they figure this revelation out BEFORE they made me go through the entire process? I don’t understand this situation, but finally after a couple of interviews I landed a job working for a retail pharmacy as a pharmacy technician. I absolutely hated the job; it wasn’t something I wanted to do, and I felt as if I was wasting my life doing something I really didn’t want to do. After months of feeling this way and going to therapy to figure out what I wanted to do and where I needed to go (as well as healing from some really toxic relationships and experiences), I decided to quit and work elsewhere. During this time, I applied to jobs I thought would be fun to do while I was still trying to figure out my life. I ended up accepting another job as a pharmacy technician in a hospital compounding medications. It still wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I was away from customers and this was something I coveted for my next “career” move. While working here, I ended up considering suicide to the point where I planned how I was going to do it, when I was going to do it, and where I was going to do it. Eventually, my family started to notice I wasn’t my usual self and volun-told me to go to a therapist who specializes in depression. After completing an intake form and talking with a therapist, she told me on a psychological depression scale, I was considered one level down from severe depression.
Hearing my therapist tell me my level of depression mortified me. How could I have become depressed? When I was in college, I was the life of the party. I was extremely extroverted, basically the “big girl” on campus. I was the person sad people came to to get filled up with a big ol’ cup of positivity and encouragement. I even remember telling people my blood type is B+ which is why I am so peppy(in all seriousness, my blood type is really B+, and I’ve made many puns off of this knowledge). How could I be depressed? When did I let myself go? I felt angry, sad, disappointed in myself, and yet relieved because someone finally figured out what was happening to me. Walking out of my session, I felt better than I had in weeks. I felt as though someone had picked me up off the ground, dusted off my knees, wiped my tears, and told me everything was going to be ok, and I believed it. I believed it so much, after a while I became recharged and decided my false sense of entrapment I had conjured up in my mind was keeping me from realizing I had blinded myself. I wasn’t trapped at my parents house; I wasn’t trapped being a pharmacy technician forever; I wasn’t going to throw away my psychology degree which I endured 4 years of stress for. No, I was going to change my perspective of how I saw my life from the looking glass; I was going to stop thinking about where my life was in comparison to my friends, and I was going to start doing what I wanted to do. I was going to use my degree, I was going to travel, I was going to discover myself, and I was going to get the heck out of my parents house.
In order to make sure my new found perspective would stick, I had to figure out how I was going to get out of my parents house. Don’t get me wrong, I love living rent-free with my parents. I don’t have to cook or go grocery shopping because there’s always food in the pantry and fridge. But my parents were retired, and they lived in a city where there weren’t a lot of opportunities for me. Thus, I had to make the decision I needed to leave and go to the “big city”; not necessarily New York, but some metropolitan city where there were a lot more opportunities for me. Thus, I had to apply tonjobs again. This was, and is, by far the most annoying task ever done by man. Coming straight out of college with no internship experience made my entire job prospects diminish in a night, but I wasn’t going to give up. I applied to any and all jobs in which I could see myself qualified for. I applied to jobs in journalism as an editor with no experience (we’ll see how that turns out), I applied to consulting jobs, production assistant jobs in media and entertainment, design jobs, HR jobs for banking companies, and more I can’t even remember. I even applied to jobs where the post didn’t explicitly say I needed experience. If it did, I found a way to spin it so it appeared I had experience. There were even some jobs I didn’t even want to apply to; jobs I didn’t even think I qualified for, but I still applied. During this gruesome experience, I learned a lot about job hunting. I learned as a recent graduate with no experience, the jobs to apply for aren’t known as “entry-level” jobs ,which require at least 1–3 years of experience (I don’t get how this makes sense, but I don’t have time nor the energy to debate how stupid this idea is), but they are known as “early career” jobs. These types of jobs are often given by companies who don’t expect the potential hire to have experience, but they are graciously willing to train the new hire in hopes they will become tenured at the company. This was a huge game changer for me and even opened up a lot more job application opportunities while decreasing the amount of time I wasted looking at entry level careers I was unqualified for. Concurrently, I also learned career titles I should search for in which I believed my degree and background would at least allow my foot a little room to stop the “closing door”. Finally, I learned what skills companies were seeking in the careers I was interested in. This encouraged me to figure out a way to learn those skills, whether it be through Skillshare or even YouTube. In-between looking for jobs to start my career inevitably leading to my departure from my parents abode, I did other tasks which kept me from stressing about finding another career.
While I was applying to jobs and waiting to hear back, I decided to pick up some side hustles, hobbies, catch up on reading, and even change my room around. I downloaded the app, “Reddit”, and started following subreddits on topics I was interested in. This led me to other subreddits I found interesting, which then led me to more and more subreddits, inevitably spiking my interest in a lot of hobbies. Some of those hobbies included photography, scrapbooking, crafting, indoor plants, power washing, Lululemon (yes the expensive yet extremely comfortable exercise pants), bread, macarons, and more! I cannot tell you how many subreddits I ended up following over the past year, but what I can tell you is this app has introduced me to a lot of hobbies and interests I didn’t even know existed. Some of these subreddits have given me laughs, ideas, encouragement, and more. Thus, because Reddit has introduced me to a lot of interests, I have become busy with a lot of “do it yourself” projects and side hustles. This gave me the escape I needed from job dissatisfaction, job hunting, and just the casual stressors of life. I am now a regular at my local arts and crafts store, I have reorganized my room creating new space where I can finally attempt to complete a split (which is painfully never going to happen), and I have so many failures and experiences which I can use as conversation starters. I also decided to change my hair; I have hated the way my hair looks for years, I just didn’t want to accept the fact that I hated my hair. But after much thought and consideration, I decided to change it to a different style and cut. The only downside is if I don’t like it, I end up having another bad story about when I changed my hair; it would be the equivalent of the “bang phase” or “Bieber cut” many people cringe at when they see the photos of their past. However, like Michael Scott (in reality Wayne Gretzky) once said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, and I refuse to miss this shot because I might become embarrassed. Finally, I’m getting into re-igniting my inner foodie by cooking, mixing food groups, trying new food within those food groups, and even eating out at different restaurants (sometimes by myself which isn’t as lonely as it seems). I have even managed to escape the dread of being single because I’m so focused on learning about myself, I don’t have time to try to learn about someone else. This doesn’t mean given the opportunity I would turn down a potential date, (are you kidding me? this would be the proverbial icing on the cake even though I recently learned I hate icing) I’m just not as “thirsty” as I was when I thought being in a relationship would be the missing piece I needed.
Even though this year has been a whirlwind of a ride, I can most definitely say what happened when I graduated during a pandemic was the most eye opening experience ever. I learned a lot about myself, I found help during a really tough time, I realized false realities are 100% false, and I learned my life is only over when I draw my final breath. I’m still looking for a career and living with parents, but instead of being hopeless, I’m hopeful and that makes all the difference.
