Millennial Nomads: Did We Peak in College?

Impact

Since the days of Beanie Babies, most millennials have gotten everything we’ve wanted. As the upper-middle class East Coast academic liberal elite, many of us were the kids who decided we were going to Harvard or Dartmouth when we were in 3rd grade, and because we didn’t know any differently, assumed we would graduate from our Ivy League schools with job offers coming out the wazoo, starting salaries encroaching on $100,000, and a doorman building in Manhattan. This is what we were taught to expect, and the big kids we saw processing into “real life” before us reinforced this expectation.

I have applied to about fifty “real” jobs, interviewed for ten or fifteen, and gotten two, both internships. I’m batting .04 for real life success; so much for that Ivy League degree. It’s a rate so low I don’t even notice rejection anymore. Desperate for other options and doing what's "done" when you're a lost lamb in your twenties, I noncommittally applied to law school. So desensitized by failure, when I received an email from one of my prospective schools kindly informing me they would be unable to offer me admission, I hardly noticed. No pang of sadness or regret, no “aw shucks” moment. I thought nothing about it and deleted the email.

Photo CreditAudrey Ruth