So generally after you graduate or you decide to move on with your life you go on a job search. You look for jobs and they generally will reply back with eager anticipation of you working for them. A job search is a fairly simple thing to do. You sign up for monster.com or some other website and you find new jobs and you search them out and apply. Fairly simple right? That’s what I thought. What they don’t tell you is that once you finish the job search, you begin on the job hunt. The job hunt is basically you trying to get any employer out there trying to even give you a second look. They ask for experience that no one directly out of college would have, they ask for knowledge that most people wouldn’t know, and they ask for ridiculous things. The job hunt is basically us hunting and trying to spear down a company and force them into employing us with our good looks, amazing personality, and adequately portrayed resume. Now what happens when you land in a situation such as mine where no one will even take a second look at your resume cause you don’t have ‘experience’ that they are looking for. I am now faced with 3 different options and I will try and see which one best matches what I want to do.
Option 1) Continue my job hunt.
Yes it is a job hunt. I am now throwing myself at employers in hopes to knock one of them down. After applying to over 30 jobs and not one even calling me back or emailing me back, it is safe to say this is not a very good option. I will continue to lose more money and most likely not find a job. The only way I will find a job is if one of my connections is able to persuade the employer to offer me a job even though I have no experience. This will only work with my connections at Agilent Technologies, so we will see.
Option 2) Continue on a job search in anticipation for grad school.
This option is a little better, but still not very nice. This is basically me finding a temporary job as something random until I am able to get into grad school. This random job would probably be being a waiter or something as absurd. This also makes the assumption that I can get into a grad program With only 2 months until the final GRE Math exam, I am highly unprepared to take the exam. With only a 3.3 GPA, I am technically ‘below average,’ and with only one worthy letter of recommendation, I am 2 short of having a full set. So although this option is possible, it will be a difficult trek and will involve me being broke this whole year working at a job I will most likely not like in order to go to a grad school I probably will not enjoy due to my inadequacy on the tests.
Option 3) Go to a community college for a year, then reapply for a university degree during which time I can gain ‘experience.’
This is probably my current favorite option. The only problem with this option is that I would need to move to Arizona while going to Community College. I would go to CC for a year and learn as much information as I can, and then the next year go back and get a degree in CS and/or Physics. I like this option because it keeps me in school at a level that I am comfortable with and will allow me to grow and gain the experience that I will need in order to compete in the market. This will also allow me to raise my GPA for when I apply to grad school sometime in the future.
So as of right now Option 3 is sounding like my most favorite, but what do you think? Would you choose another option? Would you stay optimistic and hope that a job will come along? Would you take the long shot and go for grad school directly? Would you move to a place you dislike in hopes for a better future? What would you do?
Curiously,
-The Cali Garmo
The Californian Garmo Lives Life 