By Monica Racicot

Hey Beavs!

I’m very excited to be back writing a blog article for you all! It’s been a whirlwind post-grad experience…to say the least. To those of you graduating this spring, get ready! Life after graduation will not be anything like you expect.

I started searching for jobs back home in San Diego a couple months before graduation, probably around April. The hardest part was knowing that I needed a full-time job but not knowing how long to wait to take something part-time. I applied, and applied, and applied some more with not a single bite until july…JULY! I sure wasn’t expecting to wait that long. I was soon hired for a part-time job with the YMCA of San Diego County. Yep, you heard me, part-time.

I’ve been working for the Y since September as a Youth Leader for the Youth & Family Services branch. I help middle school students with academics as well as their communication skills and creativity. What do I do with all my free-time you may be asking yourself? Well, I work close to 32 hours a week and over the holidays I worked a second job for Pottery Barn Kids. So for a while I didn’t actually have a whole lot of free time.

I continue to search and apply for full-time jobs all the time. But what’s cool about working with the YMCA is that they have TONS of opportunities to move up in the organization. I will be working full-time this summer with camps (right on the beach might I add) which will be a great opportunity for me to network and get a taste of a different side of the Y.

I LOVE what I do with these kids. I’ve always known that working with kids would be my path. But I plan to steer away from the education aspect and more towards events and marketing. I was recently asked to present at a conference here in San Diego called “STEM After School”. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. The conference is put on by the San Diego County Office of Education. I will be presenting a magazine project that I’ve created with my kids called “The Daily Fluff”. It’s a publication we make and publish monthly for students, parents and community members to read. It showcases the creativity and talents of our kids and they LOVE contributing to it!

*Huge milestone alert! I will be moving in to my first apartment (not counting on campus housing at OSU) with two roommates on March first here in San Diego! By the time you all read this, I will have signed my lease and popped some bubbly!

So as you can see, life after graduation was not what I had planned. But I made it work. Here are my suggestions to take-away:

• Stay positive. Frowning only make things harder… and it gives you wrinkles.
• If you aren’t happy with how things are going, then change it.
• Stay organized and be on top of the job market.
• Know that it’s okay to settle with a not-so-perfect job while you continue to search for your career. I left OSU thinking I’d find my career no problem…don’t be as naive as me! 🙂
• Make the most out of your time at OSU! Stay active, do your best, and be prepared for some major change after graduation.