post grad life

When I was younger I was fortunate enough to have a supportive family who taught me that education is a priority and something that I needed to take advantage of. I have always been a studious girl and kept up with my classes. I got through all my private school training and even made it through college with a degree in journalism to show for it. But as wonderful as that sounds and as proud as my family and friends are of me I am still sitting at the desk of the same job that got me through college. Unfortunately, I am not alone and post grad life is a phase that I have found to be discouraging. There have been various blogs and news segments on how the class of 2009 is the smartest of all time but going into the worst job market in history and I guess I have never felt something to be so true. I am a driven individual who has been emailing and applying every and anywhere and like running as fast as you can on a treadmill it's gotten me nowhere. The editor and chief of my college newspaper seemed like she was on the road to journalistic success and just the other day I saw her slaving away at the same retail store. Old friends with different majors are struggling to pay rent because they haven't found any other careers or full-time jobs. Just about everyone I know still lives at home and they are all in their mid-twenties, I remember the days where living at home when you were 24 was pathetic now it's the norm. It makes me sad to think that I worked so hard to achieve something that was supposed to make this "adult life" a little easier but instead just threw me into an epidemic that still makes me feel dependent upon my parents.
So in this job market what is there to do? Of course the obvious answer would be keep your head up and keep trying but when will the trying pay off and what measures must all these young twenty somethings take to be successful again? People used to be afraid of the out of college kids who were eager and hungry to take on careers and climb the professional ladder, now us kids are stuggling grasp the bottom of that ladder. Truth of the matter is this economy feels like it's getting worse. It is so bad that colleges are denying students because of it's budget cuts,so we can't even use this time to get more education, people are lining up for a job as a cashier at See's candy and it seems as though time has stood still and no one is progressing. Hopefully, we see a change but until then what?