Dazed and Confused - Third year blues
"If we are all gonna die anyway shouldn’t we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I’d like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.”
The words of Cynthia in the seminal 90s film about the 70s, Dazed and Confused.
It seems very much like everyone is talking about either Law School, not being able to afford Law School, or how they were going to be an investment banker but now, actually, they're thinking about Law School.
It's barely November and people are forgetting about their degrees, friends, and actual functioning lives in order to work themselves into a frenzy of money worries and status anxiety.
Amidst all this general narcissistic soul searching, why can't we just stop for one moment and reflect on the fact that we are mostly 20 and 21 years old and that we will never have it this good ever again? We have health and free(ish) government money, and we've settled into our student lives very comfortably. We can get up late, miss lectures, eat some scrambled eggs, fall asleep with said eggs on our faces, and no one will mind. In fact, they will more than likely congratulate us on a productive day.
All this talk about jobs detracts from the fact that if we don't get that coveted placement or onto that trainee scheme, nothing happens. We ride out that overdraft, pick ourselves up and apply somewhere else. We take a TEFL course, temp for a while, and see a foreign country. We go back home and spend some quality time with our grandparents. We do an MA in Cultural Studies.
Any of these options ensure a year of time to expand our minds (maybe not with that MA) and get a sense of perspective. Why rush into a job that you'll spend your entire working life hating? Hang back and get another take on the world for a year, or even for longer.
Mindlessly pushing forward into the future all the time means that one day we'll have to stop, turn around, look back and say: Well THAT wasn't worth it. Why didn't I bum around in a loft in Brooklyn, or teach English to kids in Cairo, or make scrambled eggs for my grandparents?
Then we'll really be dazed and confused
You are quite wrong, but also almost fairly middlingly right...
...and other self-assured but meaningless affirmations.
Jenny certainly COULD take pause to consider the plight of people less fortunate than her. How exactly would that be a worthwhile use of her time and emotional reserves?
You're partly right, but
You're partly right, but also partly wrong. The disconnection here seems to be in application to the necessaries of life right now, and where it is designed to take you in years to come. You discuss teaching kids Arabic in Cairo or bumming around in a loft in Brooklyn with a sense that the lack of vocation therein is something worthwhile. I wouldn't dispute that. However, I would also suggest that you assume there is too much vocation in a University course, when most degrees in any Faculty of Arts are best applied in precisely the opposite direction. Don't see missing lectures as something you should do else you may regret how the time may otherwise have been spent, or even going on to post graduate study.
And finally, without wishing to apply too harsh a tone, might it be worth stopping to consider those less fortunate than yourself, who weren't blessed with a University education, and who are already working their lives away in jobs they hate, not necessarily through any fault of their own or any lack of potential intelligence, but rather simply through their own misfortune.
reply
Hi,
Thanks for your comments.
1) Applying for jobs you'll turn down seems a little ill-advised, especially if you do eventually want to work for some of the places you're applying.
2) I know what you mean about people w/out a uni education working in jobs they hate, but that is precisely the same problem that affects students, and is the point of this article. Don't apply for the money, or the promises of a company car. Apply because the organisation does something you admire or wish to be a part of on a deeper level. If you haven't had the opportunity to go to university, consider a part-time course with a professional loan. Don't just endure because you assume life will never improve.
Jennifer
1. Of course that's true. I
1. Of course that's true. I don't see where I said otherwise, or where you said in the first place.
2. I'll take this apart a little:
i. 'Don't apply for the money, or the promise of a company car'.
Quite apart from the fact that being able to choose is a luxury very few people are able to enjoy, I'd suggest that in fact the majority of graduate jobs are generally fulfilling, and will lead onto careers generally enjoyable to the participant. How many graduates seriously look first at how much a job pays, before looking second at what the job involves? You can't make any judgement on the idea that working in the private sector, whatever the perks, is something someone can aspire to do, nor should they be critically judged for aspiring to do so. Many people do, and lead full and positive lives. If you feel there is pressure on you to get a well paid job at the end of all this, you have nothing to fear but your own strength to resist.
ii. 'If you haven't had the opportunity to go to University, consider a part time course with a professional loan'.
This makes a few fairly brash assumptions. Can people afford to go part time in the job they are already in? Who depends on them? Can people afford to take on that extra debt? What added pressures would follow? And what qualifications would enable them to change career to something that is genuinely fulfilling?
Career Development Loans seem good on the surface, but the terms are actually extremly harsh; interest free whilst you are on a course, but subject to extremly heavy interest within a month of the course completing; and paid back within an exremly rigid timescale. If you don't earn extra immediately, you end up having been part time for X months whilst studying, then working overtime to clear the extra debt, under the burden of added interest.
The weakness begins much further down the system.
Broadly, before complaining about the difficulties you face searching for a career which will inspire and fulfil, spare a thought for people who have been slogging it out since 16 or 18, in call centres and shops and bland offices across the land. They'd give anything to have your opportunity. Don't take it for granted.
hmm i suppose so.. but as
hmm i suppose so.. but as someone who did exactly that I? have to say i regretted it. why not apply and then have the luxury of turning it down if you find something better. Nothing was harder for me than facing an indefinate period of time on reception desk/ temping as i didnt get organised!!! you can always duck ot of what you've arranged but to have got there in the 1st place and tried whilst you still can says alot on your CV...