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BY DEIRDRE CONNER

In print | Published April 22, 2004

As their time left at Swarthmore ticks away, seniors are facing one question with ever-increasing frequency: What will you be doing after graduation?

The query seems simple enough. But careless askers beware: The question can elicit a wide variety of emotions. Many seniors actively hunting for jobs and balancing schoolwork are feeling immense stress. And for those with plans, relief often mixes with guilt.

David Berger ’04 recently accepted a position as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. A few weeks ago, however, he was caught up in the anxiety of searching unsuccessfully for a job since November.

“I didn’t think I was going to get anything, but then I got a lot offers all at once,” he said. “There was this period where I couldn’t do my work. I was like, what the hell am I going to do with my life?”

Once he knew he had options, he felt uncomfortable talking about them in front of friends who had not found anything yet. “I felt like, yeah, you should just decide and then shut up about it,” Berger, an economics major, said.

For legions of other seniors, the operating theory is “leap, and the net will appear.” Many are making plans to go to specific locations and start looking once there.

Jenn Hart ‘04, a psychology major, plans to go home to Ohio or to stay in the Philadelphia area. Right now, she said, she is devoting most of her energy to schoolwork. That doesn’t keep her from thinking about post-graduation plans. When one of her friends found out Tuesday night she got a job, Hart admits to feeling a “stabbing pain” in her chest.

To nervous job-hunters, it can seem like everyone else has firm plans. But every year, roughly one-third of the respondents to the Career Services Senior Survey describe their plans as “tentative,” “uncertain” or “very uncertain.”

The economic downturn of the past few years has reduced the number of recruiters coming to Swarthmore. But Career Services Director Nancy Burkett said recruiting activity is starting to pick up again, most of it in the business and non-profit sectors.

The recruiting season often brings up debates over which majors are most “employable.”

“Sometimes I think I should have done a more practical major, like econ. But then when I took the [competencies] … I was like, yeah, I’m in the right major,” Hart said. Doing her senior research project made her realize how much she valued interacting and talking to different people, she said.

Burkett said it was important for students who were uncertain about their plans to take time to think. She hoped seniors would “try not to allow the panic and pressure of ‘I have to find a job’ force them into taking any job. It’s been a tough four years. But then, also, the first job is not the last job. It’s a learning experience,” she said.

Berger said he spent a lot of time trying to make sure his plans reflected what he really wanted to do, not just want he was good at or what his professors were encouraging him to do.

Berger considered going to graduate school right away, but decided it wasn’t a good idea.

“I like to at least pretend that my life hasn’t already been decided,” he said. “It’s hard to tell what you actually want and what the Swarthmore community wants you to want.”

Post-graduate education and when to do it is a constant theme. About 25 percent of the class of 2003 reported they were doing post-graduate study right away; 64 percent said they planned to go in the next two to five years, according to the survey. Reports from other class years are similar.

Hart, who was originally a member of the class of 2003, said stress over the job market and deciding whether or not to go to graduate school contributed to her decision to take last year off.

“I was really stressed out about job prospects and thinking I wanted to go to graduate school … I was so burned out, and the prospect of going to school for five more years seemed awful,” she said.

Now, Hart said, she is open to almost any job prospect and will decide about going to psychology graduate school later. “I’m looking forward to having a new start and meeting new people,” she said.

That’s the right thing to do, Burkett said. “If you’re not sure about grad school or what your focus would be, then it’s definitely a good idea to work for a few years first,” she said.

It seems that, for many Swatties, the next few months will be spent thinking about what they want to do, and the next few years will be spent finding out. That’s Berger’s plan in taking the job with the Fed, where he’ll figure out if his love for economics theory pans out in the real world.

“I think that’s, like, the theme of senior year,” Berger said. “It’s all about the specter of the endpoint.”

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