The Job Hunt

As a second semester senior, I am experiencing a high level of anxiety over a recent phenomenon that has seemingly struck campus: the elusive job hunt. Yes, ladies and gents, the time is upon us to find [drumroll] what we want to do with our lives. Easy, right? I majored in English, concentrated in Creative Writing, have made the dean's list 3 or 4 semesters, and also managed to participate in several extracurriculars and hold down a campus job. I should be golden! Not so. While all of my brilliant and hardworking classmates plan for their futures at law school, medical school and other various graduate programs, I am stuck in limbo for one simple reason: I don’t know what I want to do. I’ve never held an internship (unless working in my dad’s law office counts, and it doesn’t because it only showed my how much I don’t want to be a lawyer), I didn’t go abroad or to D.C., and my only summer job was the (albeit lucrative) job of waiting tables. I guess part of my problem is that I can't even picture myself in an office right now. An office seems like misery, an office seems like a death sentence. An office means summer under fluorescent lights instead of beaching it by day and taking orders from desperate housewives and co. by night. What’s a girl to do?

So within all of this angst, my monthly issue of Boston Magazine came in the mail, and lo and behold, this issue is all about MONEY. And JOBS. Great. It doesn’t help that my mother bought me a suit for Christmas (hint-hint), now even my magazine is pushing me to corporate America! Or so I thought. As it turns out, there are several jobs out there that require me to be pretty much uneducated and still make a pretty penny. I’m beginning to wonder why I wasted all this money on a fancy Holy Cross diploma.

(^ This is not the current issue, by the way)

• I could keep waiting tables and make about 60K
• I could drive a taxi and bank between 25 and 30 grand a year
• I could walk dogs for $24,000
• I could work at Starbucks at the high wage of 8.25/hr
• I could dye hair for the pretty penny of 65-86 grand a year
• I could DJ at a club for 16/hr
• I could be a lunch lady for 41K
• I could be a librarian for 80K (Which is nice...teachers make much less)
• I could be a high school baseball umpire for a cool 75 smackers a game
• I could be a ticket seller for 55 grand!
• And, best of all, I could be a toll collector for the Mass Pike for $64,000 a year! (keep in mind, the Massachusetts speaker of the house makes a mere 61K...chump change!)

Don’t worry everyone, in spite of the blighted job market, there is hope for you too!