Paul, I started to laugh out loud when I read your first paragraph. I definitely heard the "look to the person on your left and right..." blah blah at my college graduation speech. I think was pretty starry-eyed and excited, so I don't even know if it made that much of an impression on me. I agree that a realistic speaker is much better than one using flowery words and jargon that doesn't SPEAK to the graduates-to-be.

I have a really strong GPA in college and at many job interviews, employers were really impressed, but that's not why I landed my job.

However, I have to disagree that life is about to get much worse. Who is to say life is going to get worse just because you're out of college? I think it's going to drastically change, versus get worse. My life has been fantastic in the last year and a half that I have been out of college and I think it's really what you make it.

Paul,
This is a great article. I think you encapsulated everything it means to be a newly pressed graduate, basically shame, poverty, naievete, more shame, and hopelessness, and you did it all in such an upbeat way it almost makes me want to go do it all over again!

How about "Forget what you think you want to be because what you'll end up doing will be nothing like that?" With addendum, "But you'll probably love it."

I disagree with Peter up there. I find the article delightfully funny in a dark humor sort of way. Obviously, this is not everyone's experience, but I would say one or two things in there were most definitely true for me. For one thing I finally graduated from Ross Dress for Less clothes to H&M clothes!! haha!! No but really, there does need to be celebration for the hard work that the graduates achieved, but also some realism wrapped in humor. Reality wrapped in humor is always an easier pill to swallow. With expectations set realistically, I do believe that people will achieve even more because they won't get hopelessly disappointed when they find out they didn't change the world the way they THOUGHT they would. Success will still happen if they work hard, but in a different way than they had ever dreamed. THAT'S what makes life fun. You never know what piece of chocolate you're gonna get.

someone sounds depressed...

Are you seriously telling me that NOW is your first contact with the real world... wow...

Hi, my name is Kevin, and I am an al...oh, what? This isn't the AA meeting? I'm sorry, I must be on the wrong site, they all look the same these days (nights?)... Haven't worked in 9 months, got a PHD in bio-molecular yadi-yada, and just got turned down for the host position at Cheesecake Factory. Something about the bags under my eyes. How else do they expect me to find jobs these days, other than stay up all night scouring the ads on Craigslist (your true "new best friend" as a recent "I just paid 50k a year for four years to get a piece of paper that says 'I know how to LEARN GOOD, PLEASE!' graduate"). No, but really, I'll drink to that. Hell, I already am drinking to that! Peter, I love your youthful exuberance and glow though(rhymes, sucker!), and your right, we should be more optimistic about the life ahead, not dread(booyah!), if we don't have optimism -- or 8 shots of The Three Wisemen back to back to back with Fred the pabst drinking machine... -- what do we have!? No but really, I'll be fine, like you said, we Americans value optimism and idealism -- that's why we all take so many anti-depressants, they make the dreary cubicle optimally ideal. But let me stop, all this typing is making me dehydrated and I think the bartender just cut me off. But you want to know the real truth? Everyone up there in comment world is right, life is hard, life does sometimes suck, we should be optimistic, we should laugh at dark humor and be able to laugh at our own plight (because in today's economy, it's more likely than not that at least for a while, you will have to fight some plight (again!)) -- but, the truth is, if you aren't following your dreams, you aren't living. All the bullshit is worth it, if you're following your dreams. I just pounded my fist on the bar top and spilled Fred's pabst. Gotta go! That two dollars he is asking for will break me!

At my graduation ceremony (1993) our valedictorian decided to come out of the closet. In front of slack jawed academics and repulsed older parents, she thanked her partner for her being able to get through school and to give her the courage to become the person she was. My friend and I gave her a two person standing ovation. Neither of us knew her that well, but what I admired was that she was defining life on her terms, not the status quo (that was the insight I took from her speech). Then again she could have been trying to piss people off. Either way it was a helluva conversation starter for the next couple of days.

@Sarah

Wow, sad to hear what a "word snob" you are.

You become what you think about all day. It's all what you make of it. I was in the same shitty situation when I graduate from undergrad. But this time around, I've learned how to make my unemployment period productive, and realized that bitterness really is not going to get you very far.