The Endless Job Hunt

via weheartit

I totally fell for this bullshit.  My first year of college, we had this funny little man with bright yellow sneakers come in and talk to our class about just doing what you LOVE.  I was so into it.  At the end of that day I had scheduled an appointment to talk to the curator of large mammals at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  She was awesome.  Then somehow my mom's catering company started catering a function called Angels in Flight, for cheetah conservation.  Here my mom was introduced to a cheetah conservationist.  Before I knew it, I had applied to do a student internship in Namibia, at the Cheetah Conservation Fund and I was spending my summer hanging out with cheetahs and tracking leopards.  It was fabulous of course.

Tracking radio-collared mom and cubs in Namibia

Meanwhile, my dad was encouraging me to get a business degree and I was insisting that I just wanted to work with animals.  I started off studying biology, but I got so sick of hearing about the premed kids and their stupid MCAT, that I transferred my major to Environmental Science.  After a stint working with elephants and rhinos at the Cincinnati Zoo I concluded that while these animals were amazingly cool being a professional pooper scooper just wasn't for me.  I honestly enjoyed the physical labor, but I wanted to use more of my sciencey brain than I needed for that job.  I later decided that I wanted to go to vet school, so I ended up taking all the bio classes on top of my envi sci degree.

Which leads me to my current state of getting busy - the job hunt.  I chose my degree based on what I wanted to do, what I thought I would LOVE doing. Now can someone please tell me how the hell I find a job doing it?  Because at this point my magna cum laude Environmental Science degree from a prestigious-ish university is getting me absolutely nowhere as far as gainful employment goes.  Everyone kept telling me, "Kelly with your grades you'll land a great job!"  I'm not one to brag, but my GPA is quite high thanks to a year of studying abroad in Australia (70% and up transferred home to a 4.0 - cha-ching!)

Swimming with wild seals in Australia

Now I've forgotten finding a job I love, I'm on the hunt for just finding a job - ANY job.  But I can't even get an interview.  Surprisingly, "daily maintenance of elephant enclosures" just isn't relevant work experience.  So maybe those do what you love feel gooders are right - I've chosen a career path I LOVE, and from the looks of it, I'll never have to WORK another day because no one will HIRE me.

That business degree is looking good right about now.

Anyone want to read my resume?