“Do not discourage yourself with what you haven't done, encourage yourself with what you will do.” - Neale Donald Walsch
The homepage on my internet browser features a new quote every day. A few days ago, this one, from Neale Donald Walsch, popped up: “Do not discourage yourself with what you haven't done, encourage yourself with what you will do.”
I am at a very transitory period in my life. I am graduating from college in less than a month, living at home with my parents, applying for jobs, house hunting, and managing my current part-time roles that I will be leaving when I graduate. On top of all of my personal strife's, we are also in the midst of a world-wide pandemic. Never before have I, or anyone else for that matter, experienced such a radical change in lifestyle and job security.
Last October, when I first started putting feelers out there and sending my resume to big name design agencies, I felt confident that I would have a graphic design related job by May. However, as the rejection emails started rolling in, I felt more and more like a small fish in a monstrous pond.
Compared to my peers, I have tons of experience, knowledge, and industry exposure. But the more I look into job postings and what is currently available, I feel like there is so much more for me to learn and experience before I could ever imagine landing a graphic design job for a big-city agency.
To date, I have worked as an in-house graphic designer for 7 different companies in the last 3 years. While it may look like I was bouncing around a lot and not spending much time with any of the groups for very long, I actually managed to work for many of these companies at the same time, learning to balance school, work, and a social life effectively. My internship with College Hill Custom Threads connected me to the owner of the Coug, my first graphic design job. Now, I use my College Hill connections to collaborate on projects for the Coug! We recently launched a t-shirt fundraiser to help both companies out during this pandemic, and I was able to use artwork that I had designed for the Coug to create a vector-version to be printed on a t-shirt.
I know that this project, and so many others have given me a vast knowledge base for whatever job comes next, and I have to continue to think positively about what I can do to make myself stand out to recruiters and hiring managers.
For now, I find solace knowing that my classmates are in the same boat as I, and in the fact that it is only a matter of time before the job market stabalizes and gets back to normal.
