ESSI AUGUSTE VIRTANEN | Editor-in-Chief
My graduation is less than three weeks away, and the bittersweetness of finishing my final chapter at Lindenwood is being overshadowed by the pressure of getting a job after college.
The pressure can get worse if you hear some of your peers talking about a job or internship they already have lined up when you have nothing.
That is the moment when a poisonous emotion — envy — can sneak in, if you allow it.
According to psychologytoday.com article, “the circumstances in which you might be envious will always involve a social comparison or competition between yourself and another person. Such competition and comparison with others are a part of the yardstick by which you measure yourself — your self-evaluation.”
Why did she or he get that job? Why haven’t I gotten any job offers yet? What am I doing wrong? Am I falling behind? What is so special about him or her? Did he or she just get the job through connections?
These are some of the questions that can enter people’s minds after hearing about someone else’s job luck, when instead you could, and should, simply be happy for that person.
For some people, this is harder to do than for others.
The pressure of finding a job can easily create panic. If you keep hearing your peers are getting jobs, and you do not even get interviews, the panic can sneak in because you are so afraid of failure.
You are afraid you will end up unemployed long-term.
You are afraid you won’t make it anywhere that will professionally drive you and give you fulfillment.
You are afraid because you are leaving the safe environment of college and about to enter a new chapter with full of uncertainty and question marks.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Breathe. Take it day by day. Keep filling out those applications. And most of all, believe in yourself. It is a cliché, but if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will either.[/perfectpullquote]
I do not have a job or internship lined up yet, and at times the pressure starts to get me, but if there is anything I have learned this year, it’s that life has a way of figuring it out. The right job will come along.
If you let your mind feel the envy of other people’s success and the subsequent fear of failure and then the inevitable panic, stop. Those feelings will eat you up and not only affect your performance in your job hunt but just generally decrease the quality of your life.
Breathe. Take it day by day. Keep filling out those applications. And most of all, believe in yourself. It is a cliché, but if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will either.
We might be entering the most insane battlefield of trying to grab the limited number of entry-level jobs after graduation, but instead of wasting our energy to envious feelings, we should be celebrating when our peers succeed.
We spend too much time comparing ourselves to each other and being envious when other people succeed when we could be learning from them. See, we are all in the same boat. So why on Earth would we not be supportive of one another and help each other to get to our goals?
We work hard every day and have spent almost four years together doing the same classes and trying to get to the same goal: graduate. So let’s stick together and leave envy behind. You should be happy when you hear your peer student getting a job because that means you can too. It should just push you harder to keep going because you see results flourishing around you.
Plus, I have some good news for you. If you don’t have a job yet, the numbers say it will be likely you will get one.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2017 report states the unemployment rate for college graduates was only 2.5 percent. That means that only one out of every 40 college graduates is unemployed.
So quit the envy, celebrate your peers’ success. Keep working hard. Believe in yourself, and you will not be one out of those every 40.
