That was the headline on my column, “On The Path,” a couple of weeks ago. OTP appears every Friday in our weekly Acorn, the student newspaper of Drew University, of which I’m a former editor in chief. That week, I wrote about the horrid question people never stop asking college seniors. It’s not really about anything particularly Jewy, but it’s a generally interesting college topic, so it occurred to me that I might share it here as well:
‘What are you doing…’ Stuff it!
On The Path, Oct. 8
To everyone who is not a college senior:
“So what are you gonna do when you graduate?” We dread the question. We are seniors. We want you to stop asking and leave us alone.
It isn’t funny, as your tone of voice so often implies. Brent Rivers (’11) said, “It’s an adult question. Adults will use it to throw at college seniors like a joke.”
You say it with the subtext, “The job market is so screwed up. You must be laughing at it so you don’t cry-chuckle chuckle, nudge nudge, wink wink-know what I mean?”
You’re correct. But unless you’re one of us, don’t try to commiserate with us about it. It makes us want to knock you back into your first freshman-year hangover.
The question itself is likely to provoke a variety of mentally unhealthy responses in us. Some seniors I asked about it had near-aneurysms just talking about the question. Forget about actually answering it.
With a visible twitch, Leslie Pillepich (’11) said, “The most frustrating thing is that I started hearing it this summer. It’s too soon. We’re not even halfway through the year.”
For Kelly Reckert (’11), the question is more immediate than for most of us because she’s graduating in December. “Mostly, the question makes me anxious,” she told me.
The odiousness of your question is even turning some of us into compulsive liars. “You have to quickly formulate an answer that sounds plausible, even if it’s not necessarily true,” Arvolyn Hill (’11) said.
Personally, I think I have a pretty good answer, so I don’t have to lie, but the question still makes me nervous.
As Hoke-Brady told me, “There are only so many times you can give your answer and still believe it’s real.” She hit it on the nose. This question’s onslaught is so unrelenting that my answer has started to sound surreal even to me.
I find myself wondering as I give my answer, “Really? Am I really going to do that?” Hoke-Brady also said, “Even though I have an answer, I’m still just as scared as everyone else.”
Though this may seem contradictory, she also said, “It also makes me impatient to be done. Whenever people ask, I just wanna fast forward.” Right on, Abby.
We don’t even talk about it among ourselves. “It’s not a question seniors ask other seniors, except under duress,” Rivers said. I told him that Elizabeth Shaw (’11) said, “It’s a convenient question for small talk.”
Rivers thought about that for a split-second and then nodded, repeating a single word: “duress.”
But Reckert said she sometimes finds it useful. “If it’s someone who graduated more recently, I don’t mind answering. I wanna know what they did because it might give me an idea,” she said.
Worst of all, I think we’d all agree, is when your version of the question is full of presumptions.
Unlike “The Graduate’s” Mr. McGuire, please refrain from giving us nonsense advice — “I’ve got one word to say to you, just one word… plastics.”
Pillepich said, “There are people trying to push me into a career in theater, which hasn’t been my major in two years. My parents are still trying to tell me to look into internships in theater.”
Actually, let’s just ignore the oddity of parents trying to push their daughter into theater and move on, shall we?
Some of you have the gall to be disappointed by our answers. “People who’ve done well on a typical business route and never did anything exciting expect me to have everything figured out,” Reckert said.
Your grave silence following what you deem to be an unsatisfactorily detailed answer isn’t helping anyone, suits.
Some majors elicit more judgemental responses than others. When I tell people I’m a Religious Studies major, they invariably say, “Oh,” as though they hadn’t really considered the notion that someone might seriously choose such a major. Then they ask, still befuddled, “Well… what are you gonna do with that?”
Reckert, an Art major, said people want to know if she wants to work in a museum or in advertising, as though these are the only two choices available to her. “But I don’t wanna do either,” she told me. Julia Hurwitz (’11), an English major, said, “People make assumptions. They assume I wanna be a teacher, but I don’t.”
Hill said, “Drew went by so fast. It’s really strange that I already have to ask the question to myself, ‘What am I doing?'”
So lay off. Let us worry about it on our own. I think I’d rather talk about the weather.
P.S.-Career Center, if you send another e-mail with the subject line, “X days until graduation,” I’m going to march right down there and shove calendars in all of your mouths.
