Life After Graduation: What It's Really Like

Hi everyone! Can you believe it's been almost two years since I've posted something on here? Terrible, I know. But this last year and a half has been a crazy ride - in a good way. My last post was about Charlie Hebdo, which was a serious one and something I really wanted to write about. This one will be very different, and much more personal.

Graduation

As my friends and family know, I recently graduated from both university and college! I graduated in June from University of Toronto with a Honours Bachelor of Arts and from Centennial College with an Ontario College Advanced Diploma, both specialising in Journalism. Super exciting! This all took me five years in total but it was well worth it. If you are wondering how this was possible, I was in the joint journalism program offered at the University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus. It was a pretty good program, but would I do it again? Well that's a whole other blog post.

What I really want to talk about here is life AFTER graduation. It's now officially been four months since I graduated. I'm going to be real though, it doesn't feel like I've graduated. But I think it's slowly starting to hit me. The other day, when I was filling out a form at a hospital and they asked for my occupation, I have always wrote "student" but then realized I can no longer tick that option.

CTV Internship

After finishing classes in April, I began my internship with CTV - one of Canada's leading national television programs and stayed with them till mid July. It was an amazing experience and something I would do again in a heartbeat. Ideally, what I wanted to happen at the end of it was to stay on and get offered some kind of position. Unfortunately that did not happen. While I did work my butt off at the internship, I think one of the main reasons I did not get hired on was due to a switch-a-roo. I was first interning at CTV's morning show, Canada AM, until it was cancelled three weeks into my internship.

Canada AM team on the last day of the show

Once that happened, I was moved over to their 24 hour news show, CTV News Channel. I was here for a total of five weeks. The people I had worked with at AM, moved here too, but eventually left after a few weeks to start at the morning show replacing AM, now called "Your Morning." I loved it at Canada AM, and I was the only intern there so I was given a lot of work and it was appreciated once I was done with it. However, over at News Channel, I was one of three interns, and they had been there for over a month before I came along, thus the supervisors were more familiar with their work than they were with mine. My work was never seen to its full extent by just one supervisor who could have potentially offered me a position. While I was sad about this the first few weeks after I finished the internship, I realised that there is probably more to it than just that and I have always believed everything happens for a reason. While I would love to work for CTV again, I think there is so many more options out there and that is what I am looking for now. After CTV, I took a quick, much-needed, grad trip to Los Angeles with my cute, younger sister, who also graduated, but from high school. LA was beautiful, amazing, and full of adventures. But once I was back from LA, it was time to look for a job.

In Los Angeles, surrounded by palm trees

What now?

I was always afraid of graduating because everyone told me how hard it was to find a full-time job in your field once you did. And I can see why they said that, now that I am sitting here on the couch in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. It is so hard. Many times, it's about luck or who you know. While I am lucky enough to have a part-time job while I look for jobs, unfortunately I don't get many hours there. I know lots of students don't have jobs after they graduate and are more desperate to find a job right away so at least I don't have to worry about income too much. But still, I can't help but wonder how long it will take before I land a good entry-level job in my field. I am so ready for it! I hate having too many days off because then I become lazy and unproductive and feel useless. I always have this tendency to feel like I should be doing something more and working harder. I think it has something to do with social media and seeing so many people my age doing bigger and better things. But what I've also come to realise is that I will never get this free time back when I eventually do have a full-time job and will be super busy, so why not enjoy what I have right now? It will never be this exact same way again anyway. I have my entire life ahead of me!

So what am I doing right now? Well, on my days off, to be "productive", I am looking and applying for jobs, working on my website - which you should totally check out by the way, making YouTube videos for fun, and networking. I know this won't be forever, so I am enjoying the time off I have right now to hang out with the people I love as much as I can, go on many adventures, and watch all the Netflix I can. So, if you're in the same boat as I am, don't stress out. Everyone comes to this point at one time or another and you should make the most of it while you still can. Have some ice cream, swim in oceans, and go on dates. Life is short.

There is always something out there waiting for you, and I can't wait to see what that next something is for me.