LIFESTYLE: Childhood's End

Dealing with those soon-to-graduate blues Graduation: The inevitable end to a successful college experience. To some, it's the last obstacle situated before their final stage of school. To others, it's a gut-wrenching, horrifying trauma that ruthlessly rips their needy hands from the parental cash flow and plunges them into that ambiguous void called "real life." Although the semester is barely a month old, seniors are already being bombarded with that weighty question, "So, what are you going to do next year?" To the curious questioner, the inquiry is innocent enough, but to the recipient of those words, the answer is not so easy to find. "My gut feeling is dread," admitted Helene Stein, a College senior and psychology major. "I'm not stressing so much that I can't even talk about next year, but it's not something that I want to talk about every day because it is really stressful." Like many seniors, Stein has decided to delay graduate school for a year and try her hand in the full-time work force. Her goal is clinical research experience, which means she needs a job that offers her some. "I'm kind of scared about finding that job," she conceded. "I know I'll be fine once I find it, but I'm scared about the actual search." Skepticism about the job search dominates the many feeble replies seniors offer to that nagging question. Their tentative apres-graduation plans are often a multi-option package ranging from the ideal to the utterly desperate and daring. "Ideally I would like to be a bum on the Colorado ski slopes, but I'm beginning to send out my resume and look for jobs...although I don't know exactly what I want to do," said College senior Jennifer Valliere, an English and communications major. Valliere attributes much of her indecision about where to apply for a job to her choice of majors. Though she's happy with what she's chosen to study, job choices for English and communications majors are not as cut and dry as some. "I think it's a little discouraging being in the College of Arts and Sciences when you see all the Wharton students getting jobs right away," Valliere said. "And then there's all of us College students left behind twiddling our thumbs." Thumb twiddling may not be ideal for some, but to some University graduates – whose views are slightly less fatalistic than the despairing graduates-to-be – even that is an option with merit. "I went to California for a year and rented cars," said Loren Feldman, a 1978 Wharton graduate. "It was the smartest career move I ever made." Don't be fooled – Feldman did not go on to become head car-renter of Avis. Instead, he worked his way up in the field of journalism to his present job as executive editor at Philadelphia magazine. "I spent a year [in California] and then came back. By that time all my friends had already gotten jobs in journalism," Feldman said. "[They] were in a position to help me get my first job in journalism, so it really was the best career move I ever made." Feldman applied and was accepted at Northwestern University for journalism, but opted not to go after he got their loan and payment recommendations. "They offered me a financial package that I think would have had me in debt to this day," says Feldman. "I probably would have done it if there had been no financial factor." Though Feldman had planned to go to graduate school, he says he has no regrets about his decision. "When I got my first job . . . I sat side-by-side at a terminal with a guy who had just graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism and was being paid exactly the same thing I was," he said. "There's something wrong with that. Feldman's story rekindles several worries facing seniors. Is graduate school really necessary and if so, how is one supposed to foot that $40,000 bill? Elisa Katz, a College senior majoring in psychology, plans to take that graduate school plunge without pausing for a breath of non-academic air. "There's nothing you can really do clinically without a B.A. in occupational therapy," she said. "I'm going to have the rest of my life to work. I don't need to start this year." Katz plans to deal with future bills with the help of her parents and student loans. Her only remaining worry is the challenge of getting into one of the 11 schools she is applying to. Paul Luongo, a 1993 College graduate and history major, is also in the process of applying to graduate schools, but with what will be a year under his belt. "I always assumed I'd take time off after school, before grad school, because I needed a break to make sure that working in the real world was not what I wanted to do," Luongo said. "It took me three days to figure that out." Though Luongo is slightly bored with his 9-to-5 job as the archivist for Episcopal Community Services, he is thankful for this time to "live like a human and enjoy the lack of dependency." Luongo was also advised to take a break between undergraduate and graduate school by University faculty members. "I was told that [graduate schools] will respect the fact that I'm making sure that graduate school's really what I want to do, and I'm not just extending the undergraduate experience," he said. College senior Rob Berger needed slightly less time to make that go or no graduate school decision. "I thought about it for about a nanosecond," Berger explained. "I'm definitely ready to end the education process. It's that kind of syndrome where you're back at school for four days and you're thinking, 'is the year almost over?'" Berger plans to pursue a career completely out of the realm of his regional science major. Television and film special effects, and production have captured his interest. "I'm sure that once it gets around to fall break, or winter break, that's when I'll start getting into the job search," says Berger. Berger's not alone in his calm approach to next year. There are some University students who do not fully experience the pain and pressure of that fateful day in May or the building anxiety that accompanies its approach. A job at Goldman Sachs may be a shoe-in for Wharton senior and operations and information management major Margaret Wu. After landing a job in their New York firm last summer, Wu may have a position once she graduates. "They told me they wanted me to come back, but they didn't give me a job offer and won't until November," she said. "If I don't get anything else, I could probably do that." Though her future looks bright, Wu is still experiencing the same doubts and concerns voiced by so many other graduates. There are still several months of speculation and decisions and that ever-pervasive specter of doubt. Of course, when all else fails, or makes you sick, there's always another option: Live life as playfully and pleasurably as possible. Adam Rosenbluth, a College senior and history major, might just check that one out. "I'm not sure what I will be doing in nine months and I think that's a good thing," Rosenbluth said. "I don't consider myself lazy or an idler. I want to be successful and I have realistic goals and dreams. But I also think that right after we graduate, it's not only the time to be realistic, but possibly to be idealistic, too." Rosenbluth's dreams include several possible fulfillers: a Fulbright scholarship to study in Costa Rica, the Peace Corps, and perhaps a little Cocktail action, bartending in the Caribbean. "You have to learn how to enjoy life," Rosenbluth explained. "I think too many people here don't know how." The Law School Admission Test is not beyond Rosenbluth's realm of the fanciful, however, and he is busily readying himself for Saturday's test – reality might come a callin' and he doesn't want to be left unprepared. Twelve ulcers and a stack of applications later, what's a graduate to do? Grad school, work, play, the experience of glacial skiing in Alaska...Try flipping a coin, or how about finding a nice dark hole to crawl into? Perhaps the words of a fellow University graduate might help. "My advice is to go to California and rent cars, Loren Feldman said. "What I'm really saying by that is don't worry about it so much. Don't be afraid to take chances. Do something interesting and in the long run, what you do right away out of school doesn't make that much difference."