COLUMN: "Finding Yourself" After College

discovery is a never-ending process that cannot be completed within the bounds of college. For many of us in he United States today, a liberal arts education has become a given -- something that is compulsory, just like a high school diploma was for our relatives who are a generation or two older than us. This is, I'm sure, one of the few countries in the world where earning a bachelor's degree, even from an Ivy-league university, no long guarantees someone a job. After all, it is hard to see on the surface what sort of practical, marketable skills one gleans after four years of studying Slavic literature or the customs of the ancient Mayans. Sure, there is the fact that we gain sharpened critical analytical skills, we learn to write concisely and with style -- maybe we even learn to speak another language or two fluently. But unfortunately, the applications of these skills in the job market is not as self-evident as we would like it to be. I've learned that "finding yourself" is an ongoing process. It is not a tidy little package deal that you complete in four years in order to move on. The problem with saying that is what college is all about is that we feel like failures after spending four years at the task only to find out we still don't know ourselves well enough to know what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Or even the next year of our lives. We have the words ringing in our ears, "To thine own self be true" -- "buzzwords" of a liberal arts institution which displays a huge portrait of the Bard in the entryway to one of its buildings. And we feel terrible about ourselves if we cannot follow that advice. So some of us, frustrated and bitter, go off to Europe or the Middle East or South America for a year to keep looking for ourselves -- perhaps we'll be found inside some volcano or historical monument. The likelihood is that we won't, and that we'll end up either more frustrated and angry with ourselves over our own inability to complete something as easy as self-discovery. Or perhaps, after a year of gallivanting around some foreign place, one might be content enough to just buckle down and settle on something down-and-dirty and practical. Like law school. Or medical school, or business school, even if these choices do not indicate who you are as a person, or where you interests or your dreams lie. I have spent the past few months in a waitressing job, waiting for my future to come to me ina flash of lightning. I have been searching under tables and pilsner glasses and muffin mix to find myself, and guess what -- I haven't achieved it yet. The fact is that almost every other server in the restaurant I work in has a four-year college degree (and we are a large staff). The bus-boy has a master's degree in anthropology. Most of us are in the same boat. We don't want to commit to a "real job" because that would mean we were starting on a career path, and what if it's the wrong one? We are all so afraid of the wrong choice that we made no choice at all, and we just wait. But I have realized that I am waiting for nothing. Self-realization does not happen to you in four years of college or at any other time in your life. It is something one must constantly seek. I appreciate my liberal arts education for what it was -- a chance for me to learn about things I found interesting. However, I don't see it as a means to an end. In the same way that it did not provide me with the most marketable skills, it also was not a ticket to self-knowledge. It may have been a step along the way, but self-discovery is a life-long pursuit. My father keeps laughing at me when I tell him I want the world -- a fulfilling career, maybe a family, enough money, world peace. I may sound like I'm exaggerating, but the truth is, I feel like somehow I'm going to find something that's going to allow me to achieve all of this. And while I know intellectually it's pretty much impossible, I still so desperately want to find it. Because isn't that what "finding oneself" is all about -- not compromising on what you want from life, but going after everything you can dream about? I did get a lot out of Penn, like some wonderful memories and some knowledge I value, regardless of its practical applications. But I most certainly did not "find myself." Nor do I ever expect to, definitely. Because that implies settling on something, when I can always be reaching for and learning more.

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