Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turn 26. I now qualify as being in my "late twenties"...WEIRD! We're having some people over for cake and a vegetarian barbecue in a couple of hours, which I am definitely looking forward to. Sadly, my best friend, Kristin, left for Japan early yesterday morning, so she won't be here to celebrate. That said, I am really happy that she stayed with us for her last couple of days in Canada. It's hard to think about not seeing her for a year or more.

It surprises me when I think about how many university graduates I know have left to go overseas for work. While I think a lot of it has to do with wanting to travel after being a dedicated student for four years or more (it's been ten years since I left the continent!), I also suspect that it has something do with the fact that making the transition from school to work is both difficult and painful. In contrast, virtually any university graduate can teach English overseas. While I am not trying to insinuate that people who go overseas are taking the "easy way out" (they certainly aren't - learning to navigate everyday life and work in a totally different society would be extremely challenging), I do think that it's a great, and somewhat easier way to get "real world" work experience that could translate into employment opportunity back home.

A lot of my frustration with my own current situation relates to the lack of resources for un/underemployed educated young adults. There are a ton of resource centres for youth who are undereducated - those who need to get their GED, or upgrade their computer and workplace skills. But what about those of us with Bachelor or Masters degrees?! We have all the skills we need from school, but employers don't want us due to our "lack of experience". We're overqualified for almost every easy-to-get, low-paying job, such as those in retail. And we're ineligible for social assistance programs like EI to help make ends meet after coming out of the end of the school year with no financial resources. What happens to those of us who aren't in a position where we can move back in with parents for support? We end up racking up thousands of dollars in credit debt just to make rent, eat, travel to interviews, and pay for the all-important high quality resume paper. The interest from the "six month grace period" of our student loans can't be paid so it gets tacked on to the total amount owed and we end up paying interest on interest once we're actually able to start paying the student loans. The foundation for a bright and successful financial future? I think not!

The bottom line is that there need to be more government-sponsored programs for those of us in this situation - programs that can help us learn to network and connect us with people in our field who can give us some guidance and help us to find work. While university career centres for alumni are helpful to a certain extent, they prove to be rather useless when one moves away from the university. I just hope that I can find something soon before either my line of credit runs out, or my student loan payments start to arrive at the end of October. In the meantime, I've applied to do what so many other graduates have done to get experience - participate in an international internship in my field. As exciting as it would be to go away to a new country for a few months, I ultimately don't want to leave Rick, my cat, or Canada to work. And the $1,000/month stipend they pay interns really isn't going to help me pay off that line of credit or the student loans! But the experience and contacts gained through such a journey might be my only ticket into the "real world" in Canada. How sad is that?