“Stricken with a case of Grad Plague” Special to the Toronto Star, College Daze column, Nov. 11, 2003, D4

 

With the clock ticking down on admissions into law school next year, I made the decision overnight and wrote frantic e-mails begging for references that needed to be written, stamped, mailed and received in less than two weeks. My fingers flew on the keyboard like I was playing Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" and my heart was the metronome.

And I didn't even want to be one.

My entire life was in disarray. Loose papers floated randomly in my room like a scene out of Mary Poppins. One pile for grad school, another for resumes, another for reference letters. If I dropped a match, I was screwed.

Now that it's all over, I've chalked it up to Grad Plague, which is currently affecting scores of students facing graduation across the continent. It's just as taboo as any other plague - and catching too.

Graduation seems far off but grad school, internships and job applications are due today, tomorrow ... now!

For some, this onslaught brings sleepless nights and panic attacks - both Grad Plague warning signs. The rest of us brood in dark corners and suck on nicotine, coffee, rum, in a feeble attempt to ignore the Inner Nag who repeats incessantly: "What are you going to do when you graduate?"

My first peek at the Grad Plague phenomenon was as a blissfully unaware high school student. One of my bookstore coworkers quit university one course short of a degree. I thought she was crazy but now I want to look her up and sob on her lap. She would understand.

For me, it all started a few weeks ago, when I decided to plan my future. I am not a risk-taker, I think ahead. Sometimes, I buy three anti-perspirant sticks at a time when they are on sale just to get bonus points at Shoppers Drug Mart.

So, I figured, I may as well apply for law school in case I wanted to be a lawyer one day. Besides, law school applications were due in early November.

Be honest, a lawyer asked me, are you doing this to be more employable?

Well ... yes and no.

I like school but I also want to get a job, eventually. Isn't that what adults are supposed to do? Get a job, get a car, and get a mortgage. Die.

But how do you take the first step of the rest of your life? When I read the book Quarterlife Crisis by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, I wept.

They write, "The extreme uncertainty that twentysomethings experience after graduation occurs because what was once a solid line that they could follow throughout their series of educational institutions has now disintegrated into millions of different options."

They pinned the tale on the donkey. Even those who don't recognize the term relate to it.

"Is that a new thing?" asks friend Luigi, 25. He wanted to make surefire money when he graduated from Ryerson's urban and regional planning program so he went straight to work at "the most secure thing I knew - my pops."

Two years later he is still at his father's plastic manufacturing and assembly plant doing R & D and quality control. He is planning to start a security software business.

Gul, 23, graduated from Ryerson's radio and television arts program last year. Now she is a Club Monaco manager.

"The day of graduation, everyone was so happy and ecstatic but I was filled with this huge sense of dread." She remembers thinking, "What am I going to do with my life?"

Chris, 21, a self-confessed "political science dork," who is in his final year at the University of Calgary, writes via e-mail, "Few of us have had any time in our life where we were unsure what we were going to be doing next. After high school it was university ... and after each year of university there was another year to go."

Aram, 23, about to graduate from York with an economics and business degree, wishes he had learned a trade instead.

"I know people who finished high school and went straight to other jobs," he says, "And they can buy a house by now."

Some like Saro, 21, are unruffled because he knows about stress and anxiety firsthand. A couple of summers ago he was working 60 hours a week to pay for tuition when he suffered from an anxiety attack in the middle of the night. He began shaking, vomiting and couldn't fall asleep. He ended up on anti-depressants for a month.

Now he works 25 hours a week, and participates in extra-curricular activities. But he organizes his time more efficiently.

He warns students they might not realize they are stressed "until it gets too ugly."

So if you are a Grad Plague victim - chillax. Or do as I do and book an appointment with your career counsellor at school.

Robbins and Wilner write: "A big part of twentysomethings' attempts to adjust to their new lives involves stalling like they have never stalled before."

I call it passing the buck. Who better to decide your life than a perfect stranger?