Finding a Job and Working as a Recent-Grad During the Era of Trump and MAGA Politics

I graduated from my undergraduate program in March of 2024 with a B.A. in anthropology with minors in East Asian studies and political science. I graduated with around 2 years of work experience from internships, teaching assistant roles, and on-campus jobs (study abroad office, art gallery, and history department), as well as being a U.S. Department of State scholarship alumna and a recipient of a U.S. Department of State $10,000 fellowship for an international project. By the time I graduated, despite most of my education happening during the pandemic, I would say I had a significant amount of experience and knowledge that would lend me to finding a full-time job after graduation pretty easily. But that was not the case.

I had started applying to jobs here and there a few months before I graduated and also attended a job fair, but after I graduated I was intensely applying for jobs. After 9 months of applying jobs after graduation I was finally able to land a full-time job as a financial aid advisor at an arts college. I literally got my job offer the day before Christmas Eve. By this point, I was on the verge of insanity and was loosing hope that I would ever find a full-time job that wasn't in the customer service industry (no hate to those who work in that industry but I did not want to get another job where I was on my feet all day). I didn't keep track of how many job applications I had submitted by then, but I think I was averaging about 10 applications per day during the work week, so doing the math (10 applications per day x 5 days per week x 4 weeks in a month x 9 months) I probably applied up to 1800 applications during my job hunt. This isn't an exact number, as there were probably some days I didn't apply to any jobs and I am not being very precise on the amount of days I was job hunting, but this unfortunately seems to be a reality for many recent grads.

I don't come from a wealthy family with lots of professional connections, so my job search was primarily up to me. My professional connections helped me the best they could, providing recommendations and sending me job leads, but the job market for everyone, not just recent grads, is awful. People many years out of college, maybe with a graduate degree, and 5+ years of work experience cannot find a job within their field (or even outside of it). And especially with the ever increasing layoffs and decrease in the job market for federal government and tech industry jobs, the competition seems to be ever-increasing. "Entry level" positions seem to require more and more years of experience, bachelor degrees seem to be useless with the increasing importance placed on master degrees, and pay is stagnant with ever increasing cost of living.

But I am lucky. I found a job within the field I was aiming to work in, I have a team I enjoy working with, and I have good benefits. I am not paid well, but being underpaid is not an unfamiliar concept within the field of education. I have friends who have taken a leave of absence from their undergraduate programs due to burnout, friends who can only find jobs within the customer service industry despite huge efforts to find a job within their field of study, and friends who cannot find a job anywhere (even at large chains who seem to always be hiring). It seems like the current situation is going to continue to get worse with the current state of the country and it's current political climate, and I have a lot of sympathy and condolences for students who are graduating in the next few years and are going to be job hunting in the near future, especially as I am advising many of them in my current job, and especially because I advise art students at a private university (I can't stop thinking about how many loans my students will have to repay after graduating).

Since I work as a financial aid advisor at a university, I am all too familiar with government bureaucracy and ongoing policies that are affecting higher education (I often get notifications of new things that will affect students before the general public does). The announcement of the layoffs at the Department of Education, budget cuts in Washington State towards need-based aid programs, and just anything the current administration is doing makes my job especially stressful. It affects how I do my job and how I will do my job in the future, and I worry for the students I advise. Especially since I work at a private university, and tuition is insanely expensive (1 year of tuition is equal to about my entire bachelor degree). Even though more aid is offered to students at private universities, I see so many students take out thousands upon thousands of dollars in loans, possibly graduating with over $100,000 in loans just to fund their undergraduate education. And with the current job market, the lack of appreciation of the arts, and just the general state of our world, I worry a lot for my students. If only our government would prioritize funding education and social services instead of funding billionaires and large corporations. Wouldn't that be fun.