Post-Grad

Post-Grad

Popular culture and word of mouth dictate that the time after graduating college, or post-grad, is marked by a difficult and challenging transition. Stuck in a limbo somewhere between school and adulthood this time can bring any of the following: losing friends, relationships, having difficulty finding a job or knowing what to do after college. There is even a movie I have never watched about this time called Post-Grad. I cannot recommend it because I have not nor do I have any motivation to see it; from what I have gathered it isn't memorable. 

My post-grad time has been no less terrible, confusing and disheartening than common knowledge dictates. I won some, I lost some but overall I am happy with how things have turned out. For those people whose post-grad periods did not feature any awful, life-uprooting/altering events, and did not have their worlds turned upside down but quickly landed on their feet: my hat is off to you. I look forward to reading an account of your experiences someday.

I went through college and the beginning of post-grad life knowing exactly what I was going to do: I dreamed of going to law school and becoming a lawyer. Although the idea was suggested by my Dad, I took it, ran with it and planned my entire undergraduate career around applying for law school. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a bachelor's degree in Legal Studies and Feminist Studies with honors in 2014. I took a year off after graduating from school to study for the LSAT, otherwise prepare my law school applications and relax. 

My year off was probably the most blissful and relaxed part of my post-grad time. The pressure was off and I read a lot, wrote a lot, watched movies and TV shows and allowed myself a break which I used to exercise my creative muscles. I had already done most of the heavy-lifting for law school applications during undergrad so that was not a huge time-consumer aside from the LSAT. Taking a class, studying for and taking the LSAT is still the darkest time of my life and that is saying something. I honestly thought that the only path for my future was law and that if I didn't become a lawyer, my life would be over.

I went into law school with my dreams, hopes and confidence intact. I had been given a nearly full-ride scholarship based on my performance in undergraduate college and was attending my top-choice school. However, nothing could prepare me for law school: students were overworked, pitted against each other and treated like commodities. This is a good time to state that these words and opinions are my own. There are plenty of people who go to law school, succeed in that environment, and go on to flourish in their careers; some of these people are my idols like U.S. Senator Kamala Harris. It wasn't like I hadn't been warned about law school: attorneys that I consulted during my year off warned me about how oppressive the environment is, to "suck it up" and "keep my head down" until I could become an attorney, which is presumably much better than law school. But even so, to become an attorney I would have to pass the CA Bar Exam, the toughest bar exam in the country with continually plummeting passage rates.  After passing the bar, I would have to contend with a dwindling job market for lawyers while saddling a six-figure loan debt, which is standard for law school students. 

Although I worked hard and kept at it, I was overworked, sleep-deprived and anxious like the rest of my classmates. I had completed a rigorous undergraduate education which included multiple activities in addition to school. In law school, we were so busy that there was barely time to do basic activities like sleep and shower let alone have free time. My mental health began to decline rapidly. A month before the end of the first year I went to the hospital for physical and mental exhaustion. I really and truly burned myself out. While in the hospital, I decided that my physical and mental well-being and happiness mean more to me than a law degree and a prestigious law career. The fact remained that if I continued law school and somehow acclimated to the environment, I would still have the bar exam and job market to contend with; in other words, I would be miserable. Even if everything had worked out and I became an attorney I still don't think that accomplishment would be worth my misery for three years and the everlasting six-figure debt as a souvenir. At the end of the day, I want to work for my communities, for people of color and immigrants who are often stuck in cycles of poverty. The public interest jobs I aspired to had the same entry-level salary as the jobs I could have gotten right out of undergraduate college. They would not be conducive to paying off a six-figure law school loan. I did consider participating in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program but even that is on the chopping block with the new Trump administration. 

I made the decision not to return to law school which rocked my world in good and bad ways (mostly good). The positive side: I got my life back, became happy and healthy again and hurled onto a different career path. I was so set on law school that when I left undergraduate college I had virtually no resume-writing or interview training/experience. I thankfully got both of those in law school when I was applying for externships; law school also introduced me to my new chosen career path: public policy. However, right after I left and was first recovering I was blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime and my dream job: I became a Management and Development Intern for the Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship in Los Angeles. As an Ethiopian-American, being surrounded by like-minded people was like taking a breath of fresh air. I met, networked and worked with Ethiopians in the diaspora from all over the U.S., Canada and Ethiopia. This position lead me to my next one: an Americorps fellowship that had a class, placement and community organizing component. My class and placement were about health policy and housing policy, respectively. I discussed this experience in my application to graduate school.

This fall I am set to attend the University of Leeds in England for an MA in Social and Public Policy. I could not be more excited and the subject material could not be more up my alley. I will be studying subjects similar to what I did in undergrad, except this time from an international and European perspective. I can't wait to compare my notes on my studies and experiences abroad and become an international policy expert. I want to use my knowledge to help shape policy here and/or abroad. I will be writing about my experiences here on this blog site in future blogs. 

Even now that I am taking the summer off before I go to Europe I feel the pressure to be working, earning money and producing capital. I think American culture is so capitalistic that we forget the value in taking care of ourselves, in personal growth and development and more creative/artistic endeavors. I spend my time oscillating between guilt at not working a 9-5 job and pride in my use of time to relax, blog, create art and do other things I enjoy. Taking care of yourself and pursuing endeavors and hobbies that do not necessarily make money are just as valuable as working a 9-5 job. I have so much admiration for people that manage to make their living doing their passions that fall outside of corporate office culture. I can only hope my future career will feature some form of balance between the two.