Every Senior's Angst: Figuring Out Next Year

November 1, 2005 by David Blackman

As promised last week, I've compiled a list of all my options that will turn my CS degree from an easy meal ticket to an exceedingly expensive placemat. I will share them with you now.

Move to Spain and sell coffee: I started drinking coffee on my first day of work at IBM and have now graduated to being a full-on coffee snob. Which means I can say things like "There is no such thing as coffee in the United States. It is all swill!" Since I was 10, people have been telling me that if you don't go to Europe during the summer after college you will never Go To Europe. Also, I'm told that Spain has good coffee and I'll finally put to use my five years of Spanish education.

Wander around Europe, sleep in hostels, seduce beautiful Nordic women, drink coffee sold by other people: If anyone has rich parents who wish to sponsor a naive bipolar kid while he goes on a vision quest through the Western world, please contact me.

Parent's Couch: Pros -- free food and free rent in NYC, digital cable with HBO-on-demand. Cons -- living with my parents, sleeping on a couch. This is clearly not my best option.

Waiter: I sat down with my English teacher last week to ask him what I should do with my life. He told me that if I was serious about wanting to be a writer, I should take a job I could drop in an instant. He suggested a job in the service industry, where I'd be constantly exposed to the rhythm and interplay of human beings. He also asked me not to tell my parents it was his idea. Having never worked a cash register or bussed a table in my life, no matter how many times my aunt suggested it would "build character," I cannot imagine this going well. Also, having never made less than $20 an hour, earning less than minimum wage (plus tips!) might give me an early coronary.

Teach for America: The premise of Teach for America is that liberal guilt alone can make up for crumbling school facilities, outdated textbooks, underfunded programs and broken homes. As a liberal Jew, I have exponentially more guilt than your standard liberal, so clearly I am qualified for this job. Except that I have the patience of an ADD kid with an intravenous caffeine drip and have been told on numerous occasions that I am the worst teacher ever. Regardless, guilt will compensate.

Join the Peace Corps/French Foreign Legion: In high school, my history teacher told us that one of his best friends had gone to Africa with the Peace Corps. Apparently it was amazing, and on the last night of his stay they gave him their highest honor -- eating the mother grub of a termite colony. I hate bugs. The Foreign Legion is another idealized paramilitary organization. Apparently they no longer allow felons to join, so the fear of being stabbed in my sleep for my boots is lessened. They still let you sign up under a fake name and citizenship, so I could finally realize my dream of being known as "Fascist Overlord" from the nation of SeaLand.

Startup: At the end of my IBM internship, I got drunk while talking to a senior VP who said that a startup is just like a corporation, except with free food and a higher likelihood of not getting paid. This sounds great. Free food is the best. And worrying about not getting paid? How glamorous. It's like being a starving artist but with better odds. Lately all my friends have been running around babbling about wanting to "do a startup." They're assembling teams and considering which venture capitalist firm to go with and picking paint colors for the walls of their offices. They have failed to notice that to do a startup you need a profitable idea. Unlike Teach for America, VCs do not believe that good will can solve every problem.

Become a legal aid lawyer: My parent's biggest fear in life is that I will go to law school... and end up spending the rest of my life at the ACLU or EFF chasing some misguided hippie ideal of freedom. Possible hurdles -- the LSAT, the admissions process, a total lack of desire to take any more classes for a while. Possible payoffs -- marrying a Newport Beach construction heiress, getting featured in Wired Magazine a lot.

Grad School: See previous. Replace LSAT with GRE.

826 Valencia: Everyone loves Dave Eggers, right? And I want everyone to love me, so therefore, I should try to emulate Dave Eggers in every way possible, including joining his charity organization. Sure, everyone wants to be his friend, but I'm different! I'm, umm, angsty? If nothing else, the hot threeways between me, Viggo Mortensen and Sarah Vowell will make for delightful narrative pieces on "This American Life."

Be Chuck Klosterman, snarky music writer extraordinaire: Similar to the 826 plan, but with less of an emphasis on helping people and more of an emphasis on being a detached asshole. Klosterman got to write for Spin and publish a book about visiting the final resting places of rock stars while thinking about his failed relationships. In my version of this plan, I move to Chicago, write for Pitchfork for a year and then fall hard into fake love. Then she and I tour the country and write a book about famous rock star birthplaces.

Sell out to The Man: This is the big fear. That there will be enough zeroes on the offer letter. That I won't have the cojones to strike out on my own, to deal with the uncertainty of a non-corporate career path. I'll succumb to the desire to own TV shows on DVD and furniture from Ikea. I'll want to start a 401k. But if I keep showing up hungover to my interviews, this probably won't be much of a problem.

Of course, this is neglecting the overall career plan, which is to become the greatest living American writer. These are just a few ideas to keep myself busy in the meantime.

David Blackman clearly can't make up his own mind, so seeks a little audience participation on this one. Vote for your favorite post-graduation career path (for him) at blackmad@stanford.edu.

David Blackman clearly can't make up his own mind, so seeks a little audience participation on this one. Vote for your favorite post-graduation career path (for him) at blackmad@stanford.edu.