Final Finals

As I shuffle around this morning, I am preparing to head up to Westminster College as an undergraduate student for the final time, to take my final final exams. It is pretty surreal. Attending college has been the defining element of my life for the past five years, my primary endeavor after being discharged from the Marine Corps. It has also been quite the struggle, especially these past three years at Westminster. Not because the classes were particularly difficult, although some were, but because other things going on in my life clouded my mind. While performing a repetitive task with which one has some level of skill can still be carried out with some success, even while distracted and unfocused, it is much more involved learning new things in such a state.

I made it!

Still, like I said on my "Last Day of Class" post, I am now entering a new and perhaps even more demanding phase of life: that of the working (hopefully) professional. It is till pretty bleak out there:

These stats seem to suggest that I have only a 74% chance of finding any job, and less than 1/2 of finding a job that actually requires and will utilize my degree. Pretty scary. There is a sunny side, though. This next chart shows that college grads have a lower unemployment rate and greater earnings potential, even if they are a gloomy lot:

Now to push the worries of jobs, salaries, and negative economic outlooks out of my mind and focus on acing these final finals!