The Class of 2009 Is Freaking Out

My name is Sarah, and I’m graduating college to certain unemployment.

This didn’t sink in, officially, until last week.

I was at my university’s student-alumni networking event - something every graduating senior takes very seriously. It’s the ultimate foot-in-the-door opportunity to informally land a job. The plan: Talk to the right people, say the right nostalgia-evoking things, walk away with, at the least, an interview and, at the most, an offer.

But this year’s student-alumni event diverged from that formulaic prescription. It didn’t matter how many “right people” I approached, or how many “right things” I said. Step 3 simply couldn’t be fulfilled. Not a single alumnus had a job to offer.

And it was the repetition of one word that crystallized the reality of my looming unemployment: Internship.

With that uncomfortably awkward “I have a job and you don’t” look of pity, alumnus after alumnus helped us realize that, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on our college education, we were expected to work for free, or not work at all. And this realization (read: nervous breakdown) was further solidified when, 2 days later, the Labor Department reported that the country's unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent - the highest since 1983.

As an ill-fated member of the Class of 2009, it made me wonder, How did the Class of 1983 secure jobs amid rampant unemployment? More importantly, how did they preserve their sanity in the face of the associated stress, doubt and anxiety? Because the Class of 2009 is freaking out.

So what’s a graduating senior to do? Here are the options I’m currently considering:
 

• Run away to Spain. The Spanish Ministry of Education pays 700 euros a month for Americans to teach English to Spanish-speaking children. Though this is barely enough to break even when you consider the cost of living, it’s the best offer I’ve come across. Plus, I’m hoping that a year of foreign refuge will let me dodge the internship bullet before returning to a prosperous, job-filled America.
  
  
• Become an accountant. I have a family member who could possibly offer me a job at his accounting firm. It doesn’t sound so bad in the middle of a recession, but I studied journalism with the intent to write, not crunch numbers. Also, did I mention I’d have to come up with another $100,000 for an MBA?
  
  
• Embrace the fact that I can live through an era when struggling writers take struggling to a whole new level.
   

We are the Class of 2009, and we are graduating college to certain unemployment. That or perpetual, no-fee-for-services-rendered interning.