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I just came back from lunch with my best friend Kristel and Aedz, another one of my really good friends from college. By “lunch” I mean “sit at the nearest Starbucks and gripe about boys, school, and life in general over coffee and cigarettes.” No actual eating takes place. Today, however, we were at the Starbucks in Emerald Avenue instead of Katipunan Avenue. Aedz already has a part-time job in the area and Kristel just accepted a job offer as a web content writer. Which officially makes me the only unemployed bum in our group (friends going to med school don’t count).

I’m happy for my friends, of course, but at the same time I couldn’t help feeling like I just failed at life. I’ve been sending out resumes but no one has called me for an interview yet, which is far more heartbreaking than never hearing from a guy you really like. I know I can make relatively easy money just by blogging but there’s a lot more I want than just money. I want to join the workforce, I want to build a career and make a name for myself. The kind of career I want though, is the burning question that I haven’t found the answer to–until today.

When I graduated from high school, I was so sure that I wanted to be a diplomat. So sure that in all my college application forms, I ticked off “Political Science” as my major. Then I realized that I hated reading the newspaper and that politics bored me to tears, so I switched to Sociology when I got to Ateneo. (Which was actually a very good move, since I would have had a radically different college experience if I had stayed in Political Science.)

During my junior year, when I was getting A’s and B+’s in my Sociology classes, I decided that I wanted to have a brilliant academic career. I imagined myself in big libraries somewhere in London, churning out dissertation after dissertation on a rickety old typewriter. Then I realized that this would never work out because most of my college days were spent not studying. I get shit grades in exams because my mind automatically goes blank every time I see the questions, no matter how familiar I am with the material. All those A papers–I was just lucky because I figured out which writing style would get me high grades under which professors. It also helped that I have a knack for backing up my conclusions with statistical evidence, despite my loathing for math. I finally junked the academic career idea for good during my senior year. I had a whole semester to do my thesis but guess what–I only started working on it three weeks before the deadline! How I got away with a B, I will never know.

During the later part of my junior year, I decided that maybe I’ll just move in with my boyfriend after college, get married, pop out baby after baby, and become a rotund housewife crocheting doilies in her spare time. Obviously that didn’t work out.

Late last year, I thought, “Fuck this getting a real job shit. I’m going to be a rock star with a full body suit and multiple facial piercings!” \m/ Two horrible gigs later (one in which we got harassed by frat boys) I realized that breaking into the music scene wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be. Currently the band is on hiatus since we’re missing a bassist (but keep your eye on my podcast as we will be uploading demos very very soon).

Early this year I was so sure that I wanted to be a high school English teacher and write my novel in my spare time. I was so sure that when I went to the Placement Office for the routine interview, I had the lady convinced that I knew exactly what I wanted to do after college. Then I realized, who the hell am I kidding? I hate teenagers. Even when I was a teenager I hated teenagers. As for that novel–it’s been a year since I conceptualized the thing and I’ve yet to write a word of it.

Oddly enough, what I really want to do with the rest of my life is so simple and so obvious, it took me this long to realize it. I want to be a writer. Ever since I was a kid, I could write better than I could walk. Which is not to say that I’m a good writer–most of the time I can’t stand reading my own work–but I think I’m decent enough to make a living out of it. The only thing I want to be right now is a web content writer, preferably at the company Kristel works at. From there, who knows. I suppose I can slowly worm myself into literary circles, get published, and win myself a couple of awards, or die as a failure only to become some sort of cult figure years after my death.

The moral of this story: college is a time where you will undergo many many changes. That sweet, wholesome looking girl with the boring haircut–that was me during my freshman year. Obviously I’m nothing like that anymore. At some point, you might think you’re sure about what you want to do when you graduate, and that you’re going to end up marrying your college sweetheart. But four years is a long time and events will happen that could make you emerge an entirely different person 48 months later. One day you’ll wake up and realize that your boyfriend is a douchebag. Or that you’re not at all suited for the course that you’re in. Or that the easy money of a call center job doesn’t sound very appealing after all.

You can make the job-hunting process a little bit easier by doing the following while you’re still in school:
1) Join an organization suited to your interests and slowly work your way up to becoming one of the core members. It looks teh awesome on resumes.
2) Suck up to a professor, preferably the ones with Ph.D’s, so they can give you glowing recommendations to future employers.
3) Good grades are definitely a plus, but I think what employers are really looking for are skills and abilities. So start sharpening those mad writing and Photoshop skillz.

What you really want to do after you graduate–only you can decide that for yourself.