Degreed, Unemployed and Unhappy; a Millennial’s Search of Post-Graduate Meaning

When the year began, I made a decision. “A stupid decision” I called it. A decision too big a risk I knew, but one that would equally have too big an outcome, I hoped. At least I still had a shred of hope left. “Hope can never die” is a statement I had become fond of, at least since I came about it back in 2012 and promised myself never to let my hope die. “It’s a year of being stupid,” I told myself. And yes, this year I made some very stupid decisions, not just one or two or three but many stupid decisions.

You see, I’m 28 and it’s been five years since I graduated from university.  Since then, and without mincing my words, job-search, the work environment and the consequences of the “real world” have warped and degraded me. All I have left are feelings of betrayal, disillusionment, regret and a strong feeling of unhappiness. If I were a mood ring, the color would translate to somewhere between quiet desperation and self-loathing.

I currently work full-time as an unpaid intern – a position that under-utilizes me and my skills and overutilizes my time. My technical skills are not being used or acknowledged. I make sure not to finish work too quickly, for the fear that doing so will only shorten my time in the organization and reduce my need for experience – something the job market has stressed is so important that you can’t get employed without. It was a my “stupid decision” to make and a difficult opportunity to take but one that I needed – so I thought. Before this, I never worked anywhere.

Graduation’s High Expectation

When I graduated with my BSc. degree five years ago, I was the most hopeful human being on earth. Graduating was going to be the end of my problems – albeit financially. I had worked hard, got good grades and was now graduating with honors. Now, I was hoping to land a stable, well-paying job. That was the only thing left for me to achieve. I had finished the first part of the rat race, “go to school, get good grades” and was moving on to the third part “get a stable well-paying job”. Then later in life I would “work hard in my organization and get promotions” and possibly become a star employee. Life as we know it is never real.

I was not the only one happy during my graduation. My parents and siblings were happy too. And even my extended family was happy – at least I was not going to be a burden anymore. College students are a burden to the whole community and when they graduate people say “good riddance”. Worse, people assume that just because you now have a degree, you’re set and you’re going to get a job right after college. A mistake.

So, after graduation, I began applying for my dream jobs. While I never always got responses at least there are times when I got some responses (phew), but none could translate into a job. I tried to follow-up with those who had expressed interest. No response. I extended my search outside my profession. No response. I then began searching for less than ideal positions. No response. Imagine after sending thousands of job applications, visiting hundreds of offices, making thousands of phone calls and writing thousands of emails and never being able to land a job. Worse, even after listing my skills and dangling my honors degree in every job board I still never got even a phone call or an email asking me about an opportunity anywhere. That is where the job search drives you to. All I have left are feelings of betrayal, disillusionment, regret – and a very strong feeling of unhappiness. I feel cheated by a system I trusted so much.

Internship

Jobless, broke, unemployed I became ashamed that I didn’t have a job right after college, and that shame made me hesitant to spend time with family, and even friends and peers who I thought had brighter futures. I consistently tried to avoid people, and I would ignore messages on my phone or on group chats to avoid any conversation about the future. In groups and parties, I got both mad and raged when people began talking about work and promotions. When people started talking about how their jobs suck, I wondered how a job can suck when it’s the one thing I needed in life but wouldn’t get. But that’s not why I am enraged. I am not mad because other people have a job they can complain about. Well, truth is that I’m just mad because I don’t have one.

Then I took a post-graduate diploma, at least, to boost my skills and land a job without any real experience. Another mistake. The system was designed to show us that “education is success.” We grew up knowing that education was our only route to success. That it’s only through education that we can achieve whatever we wanted. So, I pursue another certificate.

Eventually, five years later here I am, taking an unpaid internship in a field I never imagined working in. Here I am, an Honors Student, working for free with attachees and college students just fresh from college, there hope so high to get a job. It’s a decision I called ‘stupid’ but one that I hope will land me a job. I have never worked anywhere anyways.

And at the office I’ve so far learned that most of my colleagues, of course they’re Millennials, are underemployed or out-employed. They’ve busted their buns getting their education, only to end up with positions that don’t require a degree or those that don’t challenge them. You find IT people working as health screening individuals and biotechnology personnel employed as administrative assistants. It’s not life as we know it out here.

Predatory Higher Education System

Much of my rage is reserved for the predatory system of our higher education and the failures of a generation that came before us. Our previous generation calls us, millennials, complainers – something we rightfully do. I’m angry that a university education cost as much as it does without much reward. That many, if not most of the students who attend, treat the 4-year experience as a ritual one has to undergo. Massive grade inflation means one less standard deviation between myself and those who don’t try. Lax entrance standards mean that even in smaller classes, half of the students do as little as possible, have nothing to contribute, and see learning as a necessary evil, if even that.

These universities are more interested in funding advertising of the programs they offer than maintaining up-to-date libraries or modern classrooms. They are more interested in your tuition than your education and more interested in your education than your learning. And they continue to hound you for Alumni contributions long after graduation – even when you are jobless like me. And in the university, you are taught to find and keep a job only to be told later, after graduation, to become an entrepreneur.

Then there’s the generation that came before us. Our father, guardians of the nation, and protectors of the economy who have left the county dysfunctional. Watchdogs of the economy, they have let it burn. Stewards of the earth, they have done little to curb its exploitation or prepare for a more sustainable future. We are sad to still hear some of them saying “rain comes from heaven and not from trees” amid cheers from crowds they’ve made sure reigns in poverty. More tax, more borrowing and higher spending – with out of the roof corruption – are their definition of development.

And every time the house threatens to fall down, the big brothers borrow more – deepening us in debt – with the hope of averting the dismal reality of a failing and falling nation. But – I am happy to say – this time there’s apparently nothing left to do. This time the debt is just too big. This time, they – the previous generation – say from the upset of higher unemployment and an unstable economy, there’s no escaping the pain. The sad part is that they are more concerned with keeping inflation low than the unemployment of their children – the next protectors of the economy. They are more interested in protecting their wealth and unduly acquired wealth than investing in tomorrow. They have spent our future and now need us to pay the costs.

The broken system

I am enraged at the system. The system was designed to show us that after obtaining education success would come through a job. Schooling drilled a big assumption into our heads that we need a job. That we need to work for other people. That when you exit school, you get a job.

In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus says,

Are people born to be working for somebody else or born to do things they want? Without knowing anything, probably you’ll say no, people are not born to work for somebody else. That’s not how it works. When human beings came to this planet, they were not sending out job applications.

Worse, the financial system (including credit and loans) is also centered around this model, that is, wealth is concentrated.

Muhammad Yunus is among the people creating a new narrative to solve this broken system that instead of going through life, and schooling, expecting to get a job, rather, we should be job creators. People are starting to think that everyone is an entrepreneur and telling millennials to stop looking for jobs, but instead, make their own. It’s funny that those peddling this narrative say it while working for someone at some corner office.

The system tells you to create your own job after teaching you how to find a job and not how to be an entrepreneur. Being a millennial is an extreme sport. But millennials we’re creative!  If given a chance, we have the capacity for great creativity, something our fathers, the people who’ve made sure we don’t have jobs, really appreciate. But this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work for a company. No individual could have been able to create the Microsoft or iPhone. We need lots of people and lots of companies to innovate. The point is that we have options — job taker or job creator — but the system only fosters and really supports one path – being a job seeker.

My Rage

But, after all is said and done, the rage I have for the previous generation does not compare to that I have for myself. Most of my anger is reserved for myself. Yes, I made mistakes right from my course selection. My first mistake was pursuing a “BSc. Degree” in an Agriculturally based course when all I wanted was a career in IT, ICT, or computer science. I then spent all four years at a university rather than the first two at a TVET college. I spent my holidays working for the next semester’s upkeep cash instead of getting an internship for my career. I worked harder at my classes than making contacts and networking with professionals. Then I finished college and started looking for a job directly than starting with finding an internship. It has all since gone wrong and I had to press the “restart button.”

Now, as an unpaid intern, I realize that not everyone is suffering in this economy, and if I were going to college for the first time this year I’d know how to prepare. But I didn’t at the time and now I’m left to face the consequences. I am degreed, unemployed and unhappy. And I might be having a “post-graduate depression” (a story for another day). Now, I want to blame the universities and “grown-ups’ who I feel should have known better or at least told me something. They were the ones, after all, peddling the mantra of “go to college, study hard, get a job.” Instead, egotistical like the rest of my me-first, entitlement ridden generation, I blame myself.