Work Wanted

The job search of an overqualified-unskilled 20 something

Here I am, months later still telling people I just graduated. I already feel as though this excuse has become stale, as if I have been saying it for 7 months too long. And yet I cannot see myself responding any differently to the question, “what do you do” because calling upon my group identity as a student is the perfect evasion. It allows me to claim a state of discovery that is socially acceptable; identifying as a student extends the grace period before people expect me to define myself by some pre-established practice: doctor, engineer, artist. Not that I look down on these labels, I just cannot use them. Going to a college without majors means your educational experiences looks more like a web with many juicy-silk-wrapped flies stuck in it than a phylogenic tree, and describing this internal landscape takes more than a single signifier. There is no one term that makes bio-ethician / strategist / ecologist / empiricist / not white — not latina / landscape architect / listener / feminist / wildlife advocate / daughter of lesbians / curator / post humanist / hedonist / bricoleur legible to others.

Despite the challenges of an unconventional college experience, I would not have it any other way. My liberal arts education was a beautiful time. It felt as though it existed outside of the capitalistic economic logic that governs so much of our society (as long as you could skate past soaring tuition costs, which is increasingly doubtful). Some of the attributes I cultivated there are a self-aware eye and a habit for questioning my own assumptions. These things arguably made me a better person but make it difficult to find work where I feel like I am positively contributing to the world. I’ve become so critical even charity reveals itself to me as a function of systemic violence against under-represented groups. How then do will I find organizations whose interventions in the world I can stand behind? Leaving this special world of analytical exploration can be rather painful, but some people are more amenable to organizing their lives around economic concerns than others. I am not sure where I lie on this spectrum. I am skeptical yet still trying to find a way that I can sustain some of this culture in my post-grad life with work that aligns with my ethics and MO. I will say that I have had to work prior to graduating — I am simultaneously grateful and resentful that my college education was punctuated by work. However the work I did was informal or familial style caregiving jobs, so these concerns about my impact are new and have only contributed to making the transition to formal work in the public sphere more daunting.

The times that I have been able to best articulate my future interests are when another person engaged me beyond small talk. Together we create some temporary definition, a series of questions and a collage of few fields that come close. But, more often than not when I try explaining the kind of work I envision myself doing the conversation begins to get thin and I see the other person’s gaze turn inward. I think that many of the people who ask me what work I want to do, see my relative youth and ambiguous answer as an anxiety that needs calming. However, it is the ambiguity that excites me. It means that my work will emerge from the liminal spaces. Between craft, politics, academia, and science. Life is always more diverse and dynamic on the edges of two landscapes and thus my work will be in flux, formed and reformed by the interaction of these distinct sectors. I cannot say today what it will be called for its name will change tomorrow. I believe I can create my practice from a passion shaped by collaboration with other analytical, yet moral thinkers.

Sadly, I am not sure I am succeeding in interweaving my economic needs with my ethics. But I feel I must keep trying, especially as these are male dominated spaces that hold power which sets the standards for everyday life. There must be other voices in that space.