After College Woes

Students are mentally ill prepared for the real world due to the lack of reality from a college perspective. Once students graduate from Chaminade University, they find themselves struggling with the paths that they have chosen. Even when prepared, graduates feel that after they have completed school they could have done more with their time here at Chaminade. After all these months or years after graduation, students are now making decisions to have a better life in the future.

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Communications for the Mass Media in Fall 2014, Winston SJ Anderson II felt prepared to be independent and jump into the world with a real job.

Immediately after graduating, Anderson started his journey at a local Safeway on Kapahulu Avenue. Although, he was only able to bear working there as a cashier for a few months as the hours (working every day from 2 p.m. to midnight) were horrendous. Anderson left Safeway and started working at Ward Research, a market research company, which reaches out to residents of Hawaii with questionnaires from other companies.  

Anderson ultimately ended up at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper, where he recently finished his year and a half career as a sales coordinator this past August. He took on the responsibilities of filing reports, perfecting advertisements, and providing customer service.  

In the three years after his graduation, while Anderson was working and moving from apartment to apartment around the island, he had wishes that he could go back to school and continue his studies.

“I do feel that I was prepared for the real world, but I do feel also as if I personally could have done more to try to prepare myself for it,” he said in an interview in September. “I wish I could have taken more internships [and] gotten more connections with people who are in my field of study as well as taken more time to do more extracurricular activities in my field of study.”

Although feeling prepared for the world, Anderson was struggling to find his way with the jobs he held. During his final months at the Star-Advertiser, he felt enlightened to leave Hawaii and pursue another life in Atlanta.  

For a much more recent graduate, 29-year-old Sheehan Chase feels that he was unprepared for the real world and still believes that he is.

“Being from Bay area my plan is to move back there, to buy property there. I need to make a crazy amount of money to do that. I’m nowhere close to that,” said Chase, who graduated in May. “I hope to someday get there. But … I’m not ready. It’s just a degree; you don’t really have any experience.”

Chase graduated from Chaminade in Communications for Mass Media. He is currently enrolled in the Master of Business Administration program, where he stays in the comfort of college at Chaminade. Chase came to the conclusion that even with a bachelor’s degree, it is difficult to find your way in the world.

“It’s about putting your foot through the door and getting that experience,” he said. “But the real world is scary, which is why I am pursuing a master’s degree. Your undergrad does not hold that much weight as it used to.”

Chase, who has dabbled with starting his own business through the Hogan Program, recommends that undergraduate students become more proactive in their job searches before they graduate.   

“Don’t wait, don’t wait to start applying to jobs, don’t wait to look for internships,” he said. “Do it now, do it yesterday. Because graduation is going to come way faster than you think. I would tell that to a freshman, to a high school senior. Don’t wait. Don’t waste anytime.”