I am terrified about this school year.
It’s not because I dread logging onto Canvas and seeing five assignments due on the same day or scrambling to finish a 10-page paper before the clock hits 11:59.
I’d actually welcome more of that.
Give me more assignments. Give me more 9 a.m. classes. Shoot, I’ll take a 200-page paper if it slows down the day of reckoning.
I’d assume most seniors are counting down the days until we walk across the stage in the Renaissance Coliseum, but I’m searching for ways to stop time.
Graduating, especially as a Black man in America, is worth celebrating, but I’m having difficulty getting excited.
Graduating will mean I’ve done something most in my family haven’t, but that diploma also means it’s time to face the music. When all of the “congratulations” or “I’m proud of you” messages wear off, it’ll be time to find a job, and that’s the source of my fear.
It seems the economy and job market chose the year I graduated to be at their worst. For the first time since the pandemic, more people are unemployed than there are job openings.
Every scroll on TikTok shows another story about a college graduate struggling to find work. Every post on X sees another accomplished writer being laid off.
There’s this growing feeling inside me that maybe all of this was for nothing.
Maybe my GPA or the awards I’ve won don’t matter. Maybe the internships or my position at The Scout don’t matter.
It’s getting hard to watch my peers who did everything right—the experience, the connections, the internships—struggle to find jobs.
If it can happen to them, why wouldn’t it happen to me?
They say that comparison is the thief of joy—and it’s true.
Watching people who I know are qualified and talented enough be denied the opportunities they deserve is stealing my chance at enjoying my senior year.
