What are you doing after college?

Pretty much every conversation I have nowadays contains this question. It doesn’t matter if I’m having a nice cold beer with some buddies, mid-bite of a delicious (non-dairy) lasagna on a date, even if I’m trying to steer the conversation away from it, the question will inevitably pop up.

"So, what do you want to do after you graduate?”

I had no fucking clue. I kind of do now, but back before senior year, nothing.

I hated this question. Actually, still hate it. It waters down my beer with worry and sours my lasagna with discomfort. To avoid thinking about it, I drank more beer.

I’m currently in my last semester of college. In three months, my professor will hand me my overpriced piece of paper, shake my hand, then bid me adieu off into the real world. I heard the real world is a scary place, and for a while I didn’t think I was ready.

I had a great time in college, and for the most part, I think that piece of paper was worth it.  I didn’t do the best job of preparing myself for the job market, though.

My major is political science, which as one of my professors once said is only good for grad school or unemployment. My job experience consists of a couple of months of retail at Banana Republic and the few times I worked the desk at the dad’s dental practice. Not exactly the best.

I taught myself some marketing and got a minor in entrepreneurship to maybe improve my chances of getting a job, but this doesn’t do much when I am going up against business majors who spent the last three summers interning for Deloitte. 

Instead of focusing on my major classes, I took random classes on Roman civilization in American film, classic literature, and mountain climbing. While these classes were incredibly fun and interesting, they did not help me make money and caused me to take a lot more credits than I would have liked this last semester.

Instead of studying, or writing the papers I was supposed to, I wrote short stories that caused me to cringe weeks after their publishing and recounted times of my travels on my website.

I also have some brief (and I mean brief) experience in urban planning, IT, data analytics, physical training, and while my resume says I am fluent in Italian, you would not want me as your translator. 

Frankly speaking, I was going into my last year of college with no idea of what I wanted to do

Let’s table the answer to this question for a second. I obviously did not know. I wasn’t the only one, though.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?”

For less than 10 words, it’s a heavy question. It’s weighed down by family pressure to get a good job, by LinkedIn posts of people celebrating dream job offers and tweets by self-made millionaires at 20.

Another thing. Nowhere in those nine words does it say anything about the permanence of your decision, but there is an implicit suggestion that what you decide will be your occupation for the rest of your life.  I know this is not true, but I also know most spiders aren’t dangerous and I am still terrified of them.

It’s also a privileged question. It suggests that I have options, something that wouldn't have been available to my grandparents. My great-grandparents came to America with only their clothes and a promise of work on a farm. My grandfather had 15 dollars to his name when he married my grandmother and worked every job under the sun so that his kids wouldn't have to pay for college. Because of that, my mother was able to study law and make enough money to do the same for me, for which I am eternally grateful. I will do for my kids someday as well, so they too may have the privileged problem of having options.

Some people though are not as lucky as me. They face this dilemma and the wrong choice comes with real consequences. The opportunity cost of choosing the wrong career can imprison one in a job they do not like but are forced to continue because the alternative is just too expensive. The internet age has alleviated some of these costs, but they still exist, and still prevent people from following their dreams.

Let’s return to the question.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?”

Before the pandemic hit, I somehow landed an internship in Sacramento. I had bought a new suit and a few matching ties and was mentally preparing myself for the daily rush to work.

Then the lockdown. My internship got canceled (thank god), my classes were moved online, and I headed home.

Being immunocompromised, I wasn't able to leave my house. I went through a five-month period where the only fresh air I got was opening the window. And god I was bored. Privileged to be so, but incredibly bored.

One day I had an idea for a story. It happened in the shower, where all good ideas come from. I let it stew for a few days, but eventually, it got to the point where I had to let it out. I sat down at my computer, opened word, and five hours later that felt like five minutes, had a chapter of a book.

I spent those five months writing every day. Never before had I felt so sure of what I was doing, where I wasn’t worried that I was wasting time that I could have been doing something else. When I finished the first draft of what will become my first book, I got a little misty-eyed. The draft was shit, I knew it even then, but it was the first time in my life that I felt like I had accomplished something worth doing (outside of relationships).

So, the answer to the loaded question, what do you want to do after college? I want to become a writer. Some people don’t have the privilege to be as naïve as me, though, and I think this question needs some updating. 

The world is not the same place that it was when college became mainstream for the first time. It doesn’t guarantee a job like it used to, and the workplace has also changed dramatically from when my parents entered the workplace. People don’t remain in the same company anymore, as the latest startup from Silicon Valley is forcing these companies to change overnight or fade away. So with the workplace changing so quickly, this question should as well.

There are much better questions to be asked. What are you working on right now? What are you excited about in your future? Or just ask them how they’re doing today. It’s much easier to answer.