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The Piece of Career Advice that Held Me Back Later Set Me Free
As students, we often have a single goal: become employable. The pursuit of knowledge sounds nice, and school can be a lot of fun, but we all want our success to continue outside of the classroom. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen right away.
I admit to having a hard time adjusting to life after graduation. As a student, my path was fairly clear. I’d take classes, do my homework, strive for good grades, and get a degree. By the time I was in college, this was all I knew in life. Once I completed my undergraduate years, I moved directly into graduate school. After that, there weren’t a lot of places I could go.
Even with these degrees I spent a lot of time trying to begin my career. I had decided I wanted to work for a university, my degrees and experiences qualified me as “entry level,” but something wasn’t connecting.
When you’re in this type of position, people give a lot of advice. Usually this is well-intended, but it’s not always helpful. In my case, I received words of wisdom that weren’t unique to my situation. Some people would say they were surprised to hear I was struggling to find a job relevant to my degree, but others shrugged. These are the ones who’d give me the hard advice. Their words sucked to hear, but they definitely stuck with me.
