Four years ago, I sitting beside my father, dread twisting in my stomach, as we drove into Kingston on a warm fall day. In one month, that life will be packed up, put in a van and moved back to Toronto. The clothes will be picked up off the floor and from the hangers, the posters and photographs taken down, the printer and computer unplugged and packed into their old cases.
My room, the last room of my university life, will suddenly be bare, the floors exposed, remnants of myself packed away, expunged from this current existence. I will turn off the lights, give my apartment one last look, and lock the door for the last time. I am sitting here, typing these sentences in front of my computer, and I cannot imagine that moment right now.
For most graduating students, life after April is hard to imagine. Like the blank page which stares at the writer about to begin a story, the future is a terrifying but hopeful place. Questions about jobs, significant others, grad school and family hang in the air, yet to be answered.
The mythical job that was supposed to be at the end of this journey remains a figment of your imagination, moving ever beyond your grasp as letter after letter thank you for your interest and bid you farewell.
The first letter is the hardest to bear. After the age of what seems like an oddly long time, it arrives in a deceptively simple form. You hear tales of these infamous letters but you never quite expect them when it is your turn to check the mail. You turn bitter very quickly, the first letter sometimes powerful enough to induce some tears. But you move on, because what else is there to do?
The phone call is slightly more human, a little more bearable but not quite because you want to hold the phone and ask them, “Why not? What went wrong?” But you don’t—taken back by the rejection, you just bite your lip and awkwardly bid the caller a polite goodbye.
After the many rejection phone calls and letters, you realize Plato, Marx, Freud, James Joyce and Aldous Huxley can’t really provide you with a well-paying job—not unless you are a graduate student and that is not until you are in your late 20s or early 30s with a Ph.D.
Karen White, ArtSci ’04, goes to the classified section of the newspapers and scours through employment websites everyday. Every time she sees a good ad, she puts it away in a safe spot and starts tailoring a cover letter for it. Despite sending application after application to prospective employers, she still has yet to get a single interview.
“It is really hard to find a job in my field,” White said. She is completing her undergraduate degree in history.
White, who has been mostly looking for jobs in the public service sector, said language has been the biggest obstacle so far. White, who is from the Northwest Territories, said though she can write in French, she cannot speak it. “I didn’t expect all the French requirements.” Despite her difficulties, White said she is still keeping her fingers crossed.
“Right now, I am taking it as it comes,” she said. She says most people she knows are having a difficult time getting a job.
“It’s [not just] the people with the non-professional degrees who are having problems, the professional degree people are also finding it hard,” she said. “I think in general, things are slow right now.
Like White, James McRae, ArtSci ’04, is still waiting for a call back. He has sent out 25 applications so far. “I haven’t had a single interview yet,” said McRae, a history student.
McRae said he is hoping to get a temporary job in Kingston and hopes he will find a permanent position by September. He had originally hoped to go study at a graduate program overseas but did not have enough money to follow through. So, McRae, who says he wants to be either a journalist or novelist one day, waits at his home in anticipation of a phone call or a letter—which may or may not come.
Allison Moore, who is finishing her Commerce degree at the University, said she has come to with the fact she will not have a job anytime soon.
“It made me extremely nervous initially and it has taken me a year to accept this,” she said. “The biggest challenge for me has been accepting the ambiguity of not knowing.” Moore, who wants to find a job in Calgary because her family is there, said her situation has been made more challenging because she is looking for a job from out of province. She is also looking for a work as a marketer in the cultural sector, a field that is not clearly defined.
“I don’t know exactly what this job will be—I want something that has a combination of marketing and the arts,” she said. “The companies I am applying to aren’t going to post for jobs.”
She said trying to make s has been very important to her search for the right job. She has e-mailed heads of companies and galleries and met with them to discuss the field.
“The real important thing is not to be scared,” she said. “The world doesn’t end if you don’t have a job in April.” For other fourth-years, graduate school is the preferred destination.
Kit Stanley, who is finishing up her Life Science degree, has just gotten into medical school and can’t wait to take the first bus out of Kingston. After spending thousands of dollars and sending out applications to graduate and medical schools, she finally heard last Friday that she had been accepted into the grad school of her choice. Since then, she has been on cloud nine.
“I’m very excited about leaving Queen’s because I’m getting really sick of the place,” she said. “That’s mean … but true. I’m just ready to do something different.”
Phyo Aye, ArtSci ’04, is graduating from Queen’s with a Life Sciences degree. She also wants to do further education but is first taking a year off to prepare for her optometry entrance exam. Aye, who is an international student from Burma, plans to live in London, Ontario for the next year and hopes to find a job in an optometrist’s office.
“Some [optometry] schools need you to have experience at an optometrist’s,” she said.
Aye remains hopeful.
For others, getting into grad school is not the problem. Even though Mary Rose, who is completing her history and development studies medial, has been accepted to the London School of Economics, she does not have the money to go there.
“I have no prospects,” she said. “I will be lucky if I get a temp job.” She plans to take the summer to work and travel, adding that though she is a bit nervous, she is still looking forward to the future.
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