Illustration by Amanda Alten

Against a backdrop of faux marble pillars and potted plants, an epic orchestral tune blares from speakers set up around the football field as the Cabrillo College class of 2012 files in to take their seats. Onlookers blow air horns and shout support from the stadium seating as students are called upon to receive their diplomas and formally end this stage of their education.

Some are in their 40s or 50s and dream of entering a new field or getting a better job than their previous one. Others are in their 20s, about to transfer to a university or enter the workforce for the first time in their lives.

“In 2012, over 18,000 students attended Cabrillo,” said Cabrillo’s vice president of instruction Renee Kilmer as she addressed the crowd. “The oldest student this year is 75 and the youngest is 19. One thousand and 34 of them are receiving their associate’s degrees, over 530 are receiving certificates, and over 500 have plans to transfer to a four-year university.”

Graduating from Cabrillo means different things for each of these students. With degrees and certifications offered in everything from journalism and business to landscape horticulture and fire technology, the class of 2012 is a varied group. Ultimately though, the vast majority plan to use the skills they’ve obtained at Cabrillo to pursue a career, a process that has become increasingly uncertain in the years following the financial crisis of 2008.

The economic outlook darkened again in early June when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the May 2012 Jobs Report, which showed the worst month for jobs added this year. According to the report, the unemployment rate rose in May, going from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent nationwide, and some analysts have voiced concerns that this may cast doubt on the meager recovery we’ve seen in the past few months.

Graduates, while well aware of the economic environment they’re about to enter, nevertheless remain hopeful.

“I’m about 60 percent confident on the economy, but I’m 99 percent confident in myself and that I can do it, especially with the skills I acquired here at Cabrillo,” said Gabby Avila, who graduated with an associate degree in international relations and plans to transfer to San Jose State University to obtain a bachelor’s degree.

“I think I’m more confident than my instructors are,” said Genoa Fox, who graduated with an associate of science degree in nursing and health science, an EKG certification and an associate degree in Spanish. “My instructors have basically been telling us not to get our hopes up but I say you’ve got to visualize it to do it, and I can see myself doing it.”

Fox hopes to get a job in a trauma emergency room intensive care unit, and eventually to become a flight nurse on an emergency response helicopter team. Fox’s experience has become common among students at Cabrillo and other higher education institutions, as instructors take pains not to get their students’ hopes up and stress taking practical classes as a fallback to ensure employment.

“Times are changing,” said Academic Senate head and history professor Michael Mangin. “You know, something that was so straightforward for most of my adult life like teaching, a lot of my history students would be very interested in teaching and my conversation with them now is a little different than it’s been for the last 20 or 25 years.”

Mangin said he now often advises students interested in history to take a few business or economics classes to augment their liberal arts education and make the prospect of employment a bit easier to come by.

A strictly practical path to the workforce might become even harder for some students to obtain next year though, as Cabrillo College is faced with the most extreme year of cuts since 2008 if the tax initiative on California’s November ballot doesn’t pass. If not, programs such as culinary arts, hospitality management, welding and others could find themselves on the chopping block.

“It is conceivable [that these programs and others will be cut],” Mangin said. “Especially if the November initiative doesn’t pass. My guess is that we’ve probably cut about 15 percent of where we were at four years ago, and we’re probably going to cut about another 8 or 10 percent if it doesn’t pass. Something’s gotta give.”

That is precisely the situation the United States may face if current trends and statistics continue to show fewer and fewer college students have the ability to read and write effectively by the time they graduate.

Illustration by Matt Boblet

The New York Times recently reported that in one semester, 32 percent of students selected for a study did not take classes that required more than 40 pages of reading per week, and 50 percent of them did not take classes that required 20 pages of writing over the entire semester. They also reported that the students they followed studied less than half the amount of time full-time students in the 1960s spent studying.

It has become apparent that secondary institutions are less rigorous — but why?  Secondary institutions have become the new high school equivalent. Many students cannot get a good job straight out of high school anymore. This means there is more of an emphasis on students getting through college solely to earn a degree instead of on the educational opportunity college can provide.

Even students who are interested in coming to college to get a stellar education are implicitly encouraged to get through college as quickly as possible, as fees and tuition continue to rise. It has become harder for the average family to afford to send their aspiring student to college, at a time when it is absolutely necessary to get a college education to be competitive in the job market.

This leads to increased class sizes and even less emphasis on each student’s learning experience. Teachers aren’t capable of teaching such large classes effectively, and some have switched from papers to multiple-choice tests to maintain their workload. This doesn’t only mean overwhelming work for the teachers. It also means that students get less out of their education today than they did 50 years ago.

We should commend the UC Santa Cruz administration, however, for changing the school’s GE system to make sure every discipline includes a writing-intensive requirement. This will ensure that students graduate with the skills they need to be confident in the job market. However, this change comes in the wake of the demise of narrative evaluations, an element of a UCSC education that has set the school apart since its founding. No longer do students receive direct feedback and explanation to supplement the grades they’ve earned, further shifting priority from the learning experience to a grade and GPA.

At commencement, it would be deplorable to see students who look back on their years at college and say, “That flew by too quickly,” or “What did I learn while I was here?” Instead of regretting their choice to attend college, students should look back on their experience and know they learned everything they imagined they wanted to when they started college, and the system they paid into was worth the money they spent.

Emphasis on education at secondary institutions should be the highest priority, instead of the degree students are awarded at the end of their decreasingly rigorous years at college. Students will come to college and know they will attend, learn and eventually graduate with something more valuable than a piece of paper: an education.

As I write this, I’m just three weeks shy of my college graduation. My inevitable existential crisis, having started sometime in April, has been in a state of flux for weeks now — am I excited, nervous, nostalgic or just over it? One thing, though, is certain. For the remaining days of my collegiate career (and for as long as I can hold on thereafter), I am putting up a mental blockade.

I have erected these walls to keep out a specific, but very insidious, enemy: the onslaught of New York Times op-eds, Huffington Post blogs and USA Today or CNN polls saying that I, a soon-to-be college graduate, am doomed. Doomed to a new life of mediocre Craigslist job postings, minimum wage work and a humiliating drive home from college with a Volvo full of the same stuff I drove north with four years ago.

According to a source that I am not particularly fond of right now — a consulting firm called Twentysomething Inc. — 85 percent of this year’s college graduates will move back in with their parents due to a sub-par job market. By this measure, it seems like I should forget about hearing the traditional “Pomp and Circumstance” tune on graduation weekend and expect something a little more depressing as I walk down the aisle. Perhaps Radiohead or Jeff Buckley would be more appropriate. At least that’s what I feel I’m supposed to believe.

My purposeful rejection of this media-induced malaise isn’t a state of denial, but rather a declaration of independence. I’m distancing myself from the idea that I am a member of this supposed “lost generation.” The one who checked all the boxes to get into college (SAT tutoring, athletics, volunteering), fulfilled all the requirements once they arrived (general ed, choosing a minor, writing a thesis), and yet has emerged on the other side empty-handed.

The problem, to me, is that this view of college as an assembly line — where you take classes, build your resume and reach June with a job offer and an engraved invitation to middle-class life — is entirely outdated. What about the part where you find out what you’re passionate about doing? Where you decide not just what you want to see change in the world, but also figure out a way to make it happen. That kind of thing, it would seem, is limited to freshman year idealism.

In my time at UC Santa Cruz, I have met countless individuals who are indeed qualified enough to be hired by any number of companies, agencies or firms. But more importantly, I have met people whose ingenuity, passions, unique talents and problem-solving skills make them qualified for a number of jobs that don’t exist right now, because the class of 2011 has yet to create them.

Now, I am fully aware that in six months to a year, I may be proved utterly wrong with a healthy serving of humble pie. It’s exceedingly obvious that things out there are tough. I have spent the past five months interning alongside college graduates who, let’s face it, are ready to move from the intern cubicle to the payroll. But those same people are also building a skill set and developing a passion for something that is more than just a paycheck. It may take us all a while to get to where we’re going, but when we do, I’m confident what we will find will be less of a career and more of a calling.

In addition, moving in with one’s parents, while not ideal, is also not the end of the world. It may mean you’re not making enough money to rent an apartment, but it doesn’t mean you’re an utter failure. Did you miss that minor event in 2008 when all those wealthy investment bankers and Wall Street executives — who no doubt had a great job the day they graduated from their Ivy League establishment — crashed and burned and took the whole world down with them? The whole idea of an income bracket as the ultimate barometer of success is on shaky ground these days.

While money is certainly not insignificant when it comes to our post-collegiate success, it’s just not the bottom line. Irritatingly, the aforementioned New York Times and Huffington Post articles’ familiar story of graduates being forced to move home seems to end there. Nowhere does it say what these individuals are doing. Public service and non-profit jobs are on the rise, applications for programs like Americorps and Peace Corps have increased, and laptop-fueled entrepreneurship can be observed in many a coffee shop. I’ll give you one guess as to who is doing that meaningful, albeit less lucrative, work. And it’s not those investment bankers.

So while my pre-graduation status may mean I’m not be entirely qualified to give it, here is my advice to the class of 2011: Boeing, Goldman Sachs and Aetna are probably not going to call you, but that’s not necessarily a setback. If there’s one thing we’ve all learned in college, it’s that this world has plenty of problems, many of which were caused by the former generation. Don’t let the fact that you might have to live with your parents take away your resolve to fix those things, to pursue your passion and to stake out a meaningful life that resembles the one you’ve always wanted.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

I’m broke. Worse, I’m broke and out of work.

Being penniless in college is hardly a new phenomenon. I’m awash in a sea of people who are in far greater debt than I am. Truth be told, I’m doing pretty well, all things considered.

One month, I was short on rent, so I sold my car. One week, I was strapped for cash, so I started volunteering over at the St. Francis Catholic Kitchen for a couple of free meals. Deferring payments on my credit card charges — for groceries, electricity, water and so on — has left me $800 in debt and with a whopping -$31.65 dollars in my bank accounts. I thought about writing a check for $0.25 yesterday just to revel in some masochistic pleasure of watching it bounce.

It’ll be a cold day in hell before I even dream of dialing up my house’s thermostat.

Sure, I’m frustrated that I’m unemployed, especially considering how many applications have come back with that “thanks, but no thanks” response. Even while my work study hours idly waste away, I realize I could be much worse off.

When I pick up the paper, tune into the news, or even walk downtown, I’m reminded just how poor the condition of the job market is out there. Just the realization alone is enough to send shivers down my spine.

A broken economy that has resulted in rampant unemployment — nearly 30 percent in places like Watsonville — has created an enormous budget deficit at the national, state and local levels. With cuts like Gov. Jerry Brown’s $500 million to the UC system being implemented, joblessness threatens to be exacerbated, not remedied.

At the national level, the budget deficit has crippled federal funding to nearly every program imaginable. Everything from public education to health clinics faces the axe. With many national programs in the budget getting wrung for every dollar they’re worth, it should come as little surprise that HR 589, which would have retroactively extended already exhausted unemployment benefits by an additional 14 weeks, was shot down in Congress.

We’re doing no better here in the Golden State. Compared to the nation’s 9.8 percent unemployment rate, California limps along at 12.3 percent unemployed. The Associated Press ranked 15 out of the nation’s top 20 most economically stressed counties in California. Eight of Forbes magazine’s top 20 most “miserable” cities, based on factors such as unemployment, crime and tax rates, are in California.

The state, which faces enormous budget deficits, high unemployment, plunging home real estate values and rising taxes, continues to break the backs of the jobless and leave those on the cusp in a nervous sweat. Soon enough, my Golden State will need to trade in its title for silver or bronze.

In other words, it gets worse.

Advocates from the National Employment Law Project testified before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this month that people without jobs are being discriminated against. According to the NELP, potential employers are overlooking people who have been out of work for six or more months in favor of those who are transferring from one job into another. Employers have either flat-out denied this claim, have stated that they prefer potential employees’ skilled labors not be rusty, or have jumped to the conclusion that those who have been out of work for so long must possess a poor work ethic. After all, there couldn’t be any other reason 6.3 million people would be out of work for so long, could there?

Here’s another twist to our story: Minorities are a disproportionately represented demographic among the unemployed. 15.7 percent of African-Americans and 11.9 percent of Latinos are unemployed, compared to 8 percent of the white population, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although race- and gender-based hiring discrimination is illegal, it is not illegal to discriminate based upon present employment.

The punchline: There are few jobs out there and even fewer employers who will hire those who need them. I am all the more blessed to be able to attend an accredited university and nab my degree while the nation weathers the worst economic period in 70 years. Every statistic, pamphlet, Magic 8-Ball and fortune cookie suggests that a bachelor’s degree will land me a job — one I’ll probably like, for that matter.

But no amount of assurance ever put food on my plate, paid my rent or made me feel any better about being told I was “overqualified” for work. I’ve looked around and as far as I can tell, once I step out off campus, my job problems will only get worse.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

“What are you doing after you graduate?”

Whether fielding the dreaded question from curious friends, concerned parents, or well-meaning relatives — without a definite plan, giving an answer to this question is complicated. As over 2,300 UCSC seniors prepare for graduation in a little over a week, the topic on everyone’s minds is the future.

After graduation, students have the freedom to choose what to do with their lives, which is simultaneously liberating and disconcerting.  Graduation is right around the corner, along with a lot of uncertainty, but if there is ever a time to take risks and do something crazy, this is it. Many students are going abroad to take advantage of their newfound freedom in the attempt to avoid cubicle confinement for as long as possible.

Life After College

Stephanie Bouret, a fourth-year design major at UC Davis, has been spending the last couple of weeks researching and day dreaming about the future, when she admits she should be focusing on her final projects.  This is because, at the end of August, Bouret is embarking on a trip that will take her all of the way around the globe.

First, Bouret plans on spending ten days couch surfing in Zurich, Switzerland, before flying to Tanzania to volunteer in an orphanage for two and a half months.  Bouret always knew she wanted to go to Africa after graduation, and found a program through International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ), which places volunteers in any of 14 countries.

“I don’t even know where they are going to place me yet, I don’t really know what to expect, but that is kind of what interests me about it — not really knowing what I’m going to experience there, just a culture shock, more of a global perspective on things,” Bouret said.

Armed with her ‘round-the-world plane ticket and anti-malaria pills, Bouret is excited to travel by herself and become immersed in multiple different cultures.

Round-the-world plane tickets enable travelers to fly through up to 16 stops, including layovers, provided they visit at least two destinations in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and don’t backtrack along their journey. After Tanzania, Bouret plans to travel for at least a couple more weeks, or as long as the money she has carefully saved will hold out.

“I’m done with everything being really sheltered, and I really want to have my own experience,” she said. “You just have to take some risks in traveling and in life, and we’ll just see what happens.”

Despite Bouret’s excitement about facing the unknown, for many, anxiety is often paired with the possibility of adventure.

Margarita Azmitia, Ph.D., is a professor of developmental psychology at UC Santa Cruz. Part of her research has focused on the ways individuals adjust to major life transitions, such as the transition to adulthood.

“[Graduation] causes anxiety for a variety of reasons,” Azmitia said. “Anytime you make a transition — whether it is to adulthood or whether it is to junior high, you are going to have anxiety, because it is a new context. … You have to make decisions about what adulthood is going to look like for you, what kind of jobs you are thinking about, what kind of relationships — all of that is a little bit unsettling.”

Students about to graduate can use this time as an opportunity to learn about themselves and use their new experiences to help them decide what directions to take in the future. According to Azmitia, the jump from college into the real world is made easier by being flexible and open to change.

“This is the time when you don’t have [many] responsibilities, you don’t have a family, you don’t have a job that you have to stay at, so this time is a great opportunity to see other things. You probably won’t have this kind of opportunity again in your life,” she said. “You just have to be open to new experiences, and let things also emerge so that you can see new things. Most people don’t end up doing what they planned, at least initially, and that’s OK.”

April Goral is no stranger to students who are apprehensive about the future. The UCSC career center advisor for arts, humanities, and life and health sciences estimates that more than half of the students she sees on a daily basis have no idea what career path they would like to pursue. Goral helps to guide these students by listening closely to their interests and giving information about the various opportunities open to them.

Goral said that many students do not choose to go to graduate school immediately, and that there are benefits to trying out different options before deciding what to do in the long run.

“Graduate schools are about specialization, and, if a student doesn’t know what it is that they want to specialize in, then they need to go into the world of work and explore and find it out for themselves,” Goral said. “Many of the MBA programs prefer students who have had at least three years of work experience before applying. They want them to bring something to the table.”

For graduates able to travel, this can be a perfect challenge, and a way to learn to be fully independent. Goral said college graduates can further their education in locales other than the classroom, and that their recently discovered capabilities could help them land their dream jobs.

“One of the main traits that employers are looking for are team players, and the team players are not all going to be from the same geographic location or have the same kind of mentality,” she said. “Being flexible, being adaptable, that willingness, and the interaction that they have with a greater diverse population are wonderful skills that they would be bringing to any kind of position or toward grad school.”

“If there is any opportunity to travel abroad,” Goral added, “I tell students, why not?”

Off the Beaten Path

In 2008, the UC Experience Survey questioned seniors about their plans following graduation. Of the graduating students at UCSC, 30 percent planned to go to graduate school, while another 32 percent had plans to get full-time jobs — but what about the rest? Taking time off during a ‘gap year’ is a well-established custom in countries like Great Britain, and now many recent graduates are attempting to make it a trend in America.

Traveling is one of the best ways to become immersed in different cultures and new experiences.  Professor Azmitia said those who are unsure of their abilities to survive in the real world can benefit by going abroad.

“For students that are able to do something completely different, whether it is through traveling or trying your hand at something you have never done before, it is a really good experience to just really … figure out who you really are and see if you can really make it,” Azmitia said.

The main obstacle faced by students who want to travel is the expense involved. However, the Internet is full of opportunities to work in exchange for food and a place to stay.

Workaway.info, the website created by David Milward, is one option for students looking to travel and gain unique work experience while spending as little money as possible.  A first visit to the website featured volunteering in return for accommodations at either a bed and breakfast in the Australian outback or a yoga retreat in the Andalusia region of Spain.

“Everyone should have the opportunity to travel,” Milward said. “It opens your eyes to different cultures and lifestyles, you learn so much, not only about other countries … but about yourself and who you really are.”

Other international networking websites, like couchsurfing.com, allow travelers to find people in other countries who are willing to let them crash on their couch for free. In addition to a free place to stay, these locals will often show their guests around and help them to avoid notorious tourist traps while taking them to places off the beaten path.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is another organization based around the concept of work exchange.  With national WWOOF organizations in 50 countries, “WWOOFers” work with other eco-conscious locals on farms, in return for food and a place to stay.

Joshua Cowan, a fifth-year UCSC Oakes student, used WWOOF in New Zealand to get more out of his trip than the usual tourist experience.  For the last three months of his trip, Cowan traveled around New Zealand, sometimes staying at houses or hostels registered with the WWOOF network. His stays involved either helping in small, personal gardens or with various household projects.

“I saw it as a really cheap way to travel and also get to see what the Kiwi, or the New Zealand, culture was like,” Cowan said. “I saw it to really get that experience — what it’s actually like to live as a New Zealander.”

Embracing Culture Shock

Other recent graduates take the opportunity to visit or live in as many countries as possible, creating the new generation of global citizens. Some choose to teach English abroad as a way to live and work in different surroundings.  This enables the traveler to see a country from a much different perspective than they would gain from a short stay.

When Jordana Miller describes all of the places she has been, her enthusiasm for travel is infectious. She stayed in Costa Rica for a month with a friend who taught surfing for a living.  More recently, she returned from a trip to Mexico, and is leaving soon to travel to Israel through Taglit-Birthright Israel, a program that provides trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. After Israel, she plans on stopping off in Egypt before returning home.

After graduating from San Diego State in 2007 and finishing an internship, a friend convinced Miller to teach English in South Korea — she left a few weeks later. Miller originally committed to staying in South Korea for six months teaching students aged two to 14, but eventually decided to extend her stay to almost a year and a half.  Even though she said teaching was overwhelming at first, Miller learned a lot about herself in the process.

“The first week I felt like I couldn’t breathe because I was so overwhelmed – you literally just go and you figure it out,” Miller said. “The best  part of Korea were the people I met. Everyone that goes is a little bit crazy because you’ve gotta be a little bit crazy to just leave your life and go commit to living in Asia for a year.”

Now Miller can’t get enough of traveling. While teaching in South Korea, she was able to visit Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. She loved her experience and wholeheartedly recommends teaching abroad as a way to see another country.

“I would say even if you are just thinking about it and entertaining the idea, just do it,” Miller said. “Absolutely 100 percent do it, just go with yes. I was bit by the travel bug before Korea, but after Korea, it’s like a drug, I need to leave the country.  Anything that involves my passport, I’m there.”

Illustration by Joe Lai.

For some, this past Memorial Day was just as much about looking forward to the future as it was about remembering the nation’s fallen soldiers. Among those who will graduate from UC Santa Cruz this year, garbed in cap and gown will be a handful of the school’s few student veterans.

The path to graduation for these students has been anything but easy.

Luis Padilla, one of four student veterans graduating this year, described his transition from military life to academics as an abrupt one.

“As a reservist in the Marine Corps, I was sent to Iraq in the middle of the school year,” Padilla said. “I came back the following year on Jan. 4, and classes resumed on Jan. 5. It was a culture shock to just wake up and go to class thinking ‘what the hell do I do now?’ For me, that was the hardest part.”

Student veterans face a number of troubles unknown to the rest of the student body. The changes in their social environment, anxiety over receiving their Government Issue (GI) Bill benefits, or simply just trying to connect with their student peers — the uphill battle for a cap and gown is a little steeper for student veterans.

“I was a little hesitant about UCSC because of the anti-military stereotypes associated with the school,” said Erica Ronquillo, a transfer student and veteran. “I didn’t want to talk about my service with the Marine Corps. It can be hard figuring out how the other students feel about it.”

However, while every student veteran’s troubles are personal, they are also relatable. The network of support provided by UCSC’s Veterans Services program (VETS), such as peer-to-peer mentoring and counseling with fellow student veterans, is exactly what some need to earn their degrees.

“When you come here as a student veteran, you’re in need of information,” Padilla said. “You can take what your instructors and peers say with a grain of salt, but it’s easiest to take to heart what other advice student veterans have to say.”

Founded in 2008, the VETS program, under the Services for Transfer and Re-Entry Students program (STARS), has worked to provide support services, as well as educate veterans about their benefits under the GI Bill. While the number of enrolled student veterans is small in comparison to the greater UCSC student body, VETS Supervisor Dani Molina does everything he can to ensure that every student veteran’s graduation leads to a greater story of success.

“There’s about 80 or so student veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill here at UCSC,” Molina said. “Ever since VETS saw its first graduate in 2009, we’ve been gaining a lot of support for veterans returning to school.”

Support either in the form of grants from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or simple friendly gestures from their student peers, has been a huge relief for student veterans like Erica Ronquillo.

“I did not expect the amount of support that is here,” Ronquillo said. “UCSC turned out to be an excellent environment for student veterans. My perception of Santa Cruz was completely turned around. There’s a lot of good opportunities here for student veterans.”

Now, at the cusp of graduation, UCSC’s graduating veterans are looking forward to bringing their degrees and military experience to the workforce.

“This year, we are looking forward to seeing four more student veterans graduate,” VETS Supervisor Molina said. “Every student veteran who graduates from UCSC goes on to do something amazing with their life — working at the Pentagon, Ernst & Yung, investment companies, all of it.”

As the school year comes to a close, having exchanged their firearms for pens and their helmets for tassels, UCSC’s student veterans take pride in their accomplishments and are confident of their futures. Padilla, who will be graduating with a degree in history, was accepted into an internship in Washington D.C.

“My military focus and discipline has enabled me to work hard to get what I want,” Padilla said. “Now I want to do some government work, maybe international relations. I’d like to eventually work for the state department … [and] I would like to keep helping student veterans after I graduate.”