"Children of the Recession"

After watching Katie Couric's piece on "Children of the Recession" on the CBS evening news last Wed night, I couldn't help but think about myself. Although I am far from a child, I am an "adult" of the recession. I have been affected the same way those college students have been. Fortunately (or unfortunately, since I now have a monstrous amount of debt) I had the foresight to go to grad school because, just as one of the college graduates said in that piece, a Bachelor's degree is synonymous to a high school degree from the previous generation--a grad degree is now what a Bachelor's degree was 20-30 years ago.

So in realizing this, I enrolled in grad school. Although knowing I wanted to work in the environmental field, I was unsure exactly how I wanted to focus my passion. By living in the desert in Arizona and seeing the excessive water use as well as observing the excessive amount of people that live in the desert, my direction became clear. I have conserved water since I was in the third grade, and I grew up in Syracuse, New York--a place that receives plenty of rain. So if I can adapt water conservation and efficiency in my life (to the point where I don't even think twice about it--I just do it), why can't everyone else? This is how I figured out I wanted to be involved in public education about our most important natural resource (especially youth education since I love kids and that was the age when I developed my passion for environmentalism).

Unfortunately, I graduated right in time for the heart of the economic downturn (June 09). Even though I've realized and worked hard towards my dream, I have to fight to find a job. I am a well-educated, passionate individual--exactly the way I was taught to be--and how we were all told that if we were educated and passionate, we would be successful in our chosen career path. So is that notion completely thrown out the window now? Has all of my hard work been for nothing?

Even though I can't help but think that sometimes, I try to keep a positive outlook. Job searching has taken on a new meaning: now it's all about being creative, creating and maintaining an online identity, and, of course, networking (even more so than in the past). However, this does take a lot of time and energy, and when you're working full-time, can seem utterly impossible. On the other hand, I think it can be a good thing in the long run. You can really discover who you are and what you want out of life and out of a career. You can reaffirm your passions and your confidence. You can become who you want to be. So even though times are tough right now, they will get better. Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective.