The Year Long Job Search

The year after graduating from undergraduate school seemed to drag on forever. I got a part-time job as a graduate assistant for a professor working at a branch campus of Generic University. He was, and probably still is, an egotistical jerk.

One benefit of working for Mr. Jerk is that he purchased a huge engineering company database detailing company contact information and production areas of thousands of companies. It served as a great resource during my job hunt. I printed resume after resume throughout the year, sending them in 50 to 100 batches. The last total I remember was at 1200 resumes, after that I lost count. The response rate was piss poor at 1%-2%. This meant that for every 100 resumes I mailed, I received one or two interview invitations. What was worse is that it was expensive. At the time each resume and cover letter ensemble cost 75 cents which included the paper, envelopes, printing and postage. And the interview expenses were often not reimbursed by the company. It astounded me how expensive job searching was!

I toiled away in unemployment hell which led me to increasingly wallow in self pity. As the year progressed, I became extremely angry and depressed. "This isn't how it's supposed to be!" I exclaimed to my mother. "That's life," she replied. Ah, she always knew how to make me feel better. NOT!

I couldn't get a job because (1) the economy was in the throws of a recession, (2) potential employers didn't know what Engineering Science was, (3) they felt my degree was too general when they came to understand what the subject was, and (4) I had no experience or hard skills. The last item is pretty important as how can one acquire experience when nobody will hire them to develop said experience? Suddenly I strongly regretted not doing an engineering co-op / internship while in college. Oops, too late!

I also made an unsettling discovery. The starting salary quoted by Generic University for recent graduates with my degree was grossly inflated. Quoted at $35k per year, the salaries I found were to be more like $25k-$27k per year (I will discuss this further in another post).

My student loans were in deferment during the year. The payments were in the grace period for the 6 months after graduation, and in unemployment deferment the remaining 6 months. Wasn't that kind of my lender? Just tacked the interest right back onto that baby so it could snowball into an even bigger sum of cash to repay ....

As the year after graduation came to a close, desperation sat in. I couldn't put off my paying my student loans forever, could I? Then I hatched a brilliant plan - the perfect plan - or so I thought. "Hey, why don't I go back to school and earn my Masters in Electrical Engineering. Everyone knows what Electrical Engineering is. I will definitely be more employable! And an added bonus is that my student loans would go into deferment again without accruing interest ... sweet!"

So I was off to grad school the autumn a year after I graduated from undergrad to realize my fool-proof plan. It wasn't a labor of love, and I lacked true desire for a graduate education as I still felt mighty burned by my undergraduate experience. I entered grad school angry, depressed, resentful and in poverty.

Oh, did I mention that grad students are allowed to borrow obscene amounts of money to fund their education? Ah yes, and I borrowed the maximum amount I could. "I will make more than enough money with a graduate degree to pay these loans off during the first few years after I graduate."

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Next: Graduate School or Bust (or should I say AND Bust?)