Graduation: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

"Well, it's a growth market, and I'm sure you'd get to meet the most interesting people," I replied, obnoxiously smug, knowing that my own postgraduate plans consist of finding a graduate school that will agree to take my money in exchange for sheltering me from the blistering responsibilities of the "real world" for two more years.

This has been a common conversation recently among my friends and I, or at least I presume it has been. I can't be sure because I usually tune out my friends when they talk to me about anything other than how funny my last column was.

Occasionally though, some of their words manage to penetrate my mental defenses, and I'm pretty sure I've heard the words "interview," "resume" and "job" tossed around quite often, especially in conjunction with the word "worried" or, more often, the phrase "I'm so fucked."

Another friend of mine from back home, let's call him Matt, as that is his name, e-mailed me recently asking, "What the hell am I going to do with a degree in television?"

I thought I remembered Sally Struthers telling me a long time ago that you could make more money (which, sure, we all want to do) if you got a degree in television, but then remembered that, in fact, she was peddling degrees in television repair.

I was stumped. "Are you good with babies?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Fortunately, Matt had already realized that a degree in television would be a good starting point for a career in, would you believe, television. He outlined the long, arduous, ass-kissing-intensive path from lowly production assistant all the way up the ladder to lowly scriptwriter.

To me, it sounded about as attractive a career move as working your way up from the bottom of the medical world to become the world's foremost expert on proctology. The only real difference I could see was that with writing, you don't get those rubber gloves.

Growing up, I had always thought I was going to go into business. When I started college, people asked me what I wanted to do, and I replied, "Business."

Eventually, it occurred to me that my business aspirations were never fully developed. I had no idea what "business" entailed. I just thought it would be nice to have a big desk and a secretary with which to use my big desk for wholly nonwork-related "business."

Unfortunately, I think that's where most of my friends are right now. They're about to graduate with a degree that's worth less than a buy one/get one free coupon from Sid's House of Barium Enemas. They're insanely jealous of their friends with degrees in something useful like "finance" or "political science" or "not psychology."

I don't know exactly what advice to give. I'm too busy pretending I really want to go into advertising.

The one thing I can tell you, though, is this. "No matter who you are, no matter what you studied in college, no matter what career you choose, always remember, if you have blond hair, blue eyes, and an IQ of 140 or higher, I know someone who might want your babies."

David Povill can be reached at pfunk@email.unc.edu.