Sunday, April 12, 2009

For Hire

I've come to find myself in a bit of a bind lately. I'm trapped in a little bit of uncertainty. Pardon my ambiguity here, what I'm trying to say is that I still haven't found a summer internship.

After a handful of callbacks for interviews, I've come up dry each time. I've been trying to figure out exactly what's going wrong and what's keeping me out of reach of any potential job. So far, I've only come up with one thing: I must not interview well.

This conclusion arose when I realized that my resume was getting attention and interviews. This meant I had some good stats to my name. I get the interview, and within some time I am rejected. In the meantime I hear of my colleagues, my friends getting the job as I sit disappointed in myself. I don't want to say they aren't as qualified as I may be, but I don't see what makes them so much better than me. Hell, they even tell me (truth or not) that they don't understand why I can't find a job. I can only imagine that my academic and preceding experience just wasn't enough? It's like they want something more out of me that I don't feel is of the same importance as my actual skills and performance.

Anyway, aside from that, the bind it creates is something of a torturous and familiar path. Mid-April approaches once again, I am without a solid summer internship. Yes I have my current research position, but that isn't supposed to last me more than a couple weeks out of school. With this uncertainty, I have no idea where I am going to be placed this summer. I could potentially stay in EL if I am able to stick around for research, or I could be forced to go back home. Going home doesn't mean I have a job, and if I do find some income.. it will most likely be unrelated to the industry. This means I will be screwed out of the experience that my peers are getting in the industry giving them an upper hand when it comes to full-time positions post-college. When I lack that experience it traps me even more in the future and I could be caught out of college with no job. Given this economic situation, if I can't start out soon I'm screwed. When I'm out of college, well that means another thing: student loans. I have a tremendous and growing amount of student loans to be paid off as soon as I graduate. If I'm cornered, I won't be able to pay them off.

Which raises an additional concern, academic performance! Yes I've always had a significant hold on my academics, but I need to keep them strong for at least this semester. If things slip out of my hands (namely biochem) it could hold me back from necessary scholarships. This means more loans, and less money that I'll have after graduating. So in essence, it all matters. Some people say I'll be fine without an industry job, or I'll be fine if I don't do well in this one class. Maybe they're right, but I would rather not risk it.

Either way, my point of this is to vent a little about how frustrated I am in trying to figure out my near future which logically affects my long-term future oh so directly. Good night.