When we were young we were told that higher education held the key to success, that if we work hard, get good grades, and go to college there will be a plethora of employment options available to us. Before you start cursing your former educators and parents for making you suffer through 16 years of tedious work only to find your self standing on the edge of homelessness, realize that at the time they were right. But considering the current economy and the rapid rate of unemployment, there are now virtually no options for recent college graduates.
I graduated from a four-year university in central Pennsylvania in 2009 with a B.S. in Library and Information Science, I spent the next two years working odd jobs while applying to every library, museum, and commercial office within 20 miles of my residence. While living in South Carolina I managed to score a job washing laundry, at the time I was so desperate I would have worked anywhere considering I had already spent three months applying. The laundry job was simple, the pay was low, hours were scarce, and the commute was 45 minutes both ways. I stayed until I got a job waiting tables for $2.13 an hour, working 20 hours at the most and bringing home less then 50 dollars every night. My relationship led me to Tampa, FL where I found the unemployment rate at 11.8 and panhandlers at every traffic light. I spent 3 more months applying everywhere from Walmart, to Subway, to local grocery stores, to hotels, to the more ambitious law firms. Nothing until June of 2010 when I was hired part-time by a deli to prep and serve take-out for $8 an hours, I held this job for about a month until I was fired after notifying my employer that I was 5 months pregnant and would need to take three weeks off in January (a complaint to the labor board was never addressed.) So here I am now, 7 months later and still no luck. So, recent college graduate who is struggling like me- you are not alone.
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