Starting as a clueless 18-year-old entering college and fast forwarding to being to 22-year-old thinking about jobs and health benefits has been the fastest transition of my life. If you thought maneuvering through using Zoom was challenging, try career fairs, constantly updating LinkedIn and working through classes, all while applying for full-time jobs.
As a journalist, the communications field is always changing and adjusting to the needs of local and national stations all while jobs continue to change and open up across the country. Writing jobs are easier to find than on-air positions, but even still, the search is on for a position that excites me.
Looking for jobs isn’t the hard part, as job boards are all over the internet and networking has always been pushed as a valuable skill. However, it’s managing school assignments and job searching that proves tough. Interviewing people for stories, writing articles like this one and making time to edit the videos I’m filming is a constant challenge throughout my final semester.
Being able to work more hands-on in the field that I love has been fun and exciting, but is also making me realize that journalism is a lot of work. There are probably a multitude of other college graduates who deem themselves just as capable of fulfilling a lot of the same jobs I’m applying for. The job search and this realization have made me realize that I should keep my options open.
Journalism has a vast variety of fields and limiting myself to either broadcast or digital writing could be limiting the opportunities for finding cool and exciting jobs. While navigating job boards and still being a student, stress also has found its way into location searching.
Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago and many others are all major cities I have been job searching in and the opportunities are endless. From positions with huge media conglomerates like Vice Media in the Big Apple, on-air positions at smaller stations in Pittsburgh and Chicago or the possibility of applying for a social media position at corporation are all options on the table. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up doing social media with everyone’s favorite TikTok bird, Duo from Duolingo.
While the small details have become the target of most of my stress and frustration, I’m so excited to graduate from college. I have been on the school track for so many years now and it’s very exciting to think about all of the new places I’ll move to over the years, all the jobs I’ll have, the people I’ll meet and the experiences beyond the scope of school.
Being able to travel more, explore new cities and get out of my comfort zone are some of the things I look forward to once I’m past this open door of stress and opportunity called graduation.