Hello, from DC! My name is Francesca Jimenez, Scripps class of 2016. This summer, I will be guesting blogging for Beyond the Elms, something I enjoyed doing in my senior year. Since the year I’ve graduated, I’ve done a lot: moved across the country, transitioned from a part-time job to an internship to one full-time career building role, negotiated a salary, bought a car, and gone from receiving zero job offers senior year to having recruiters regularly reach out to me via LinkedIn. In the year since I’ve graduated, there has also been a lot I wish I knew or heard from others. A year ago, I would have had a difficult time imagining all of this and journey to it. I will always be on a journey, but I have just come across the wide bridge that I saw at graduation — what life after college and becoming an adult means — and have done what I needed to do to truly feel determined and empowered about that journey. This summer, I’m here to tell you about all that’s happened and all that I wish I knew. I’m also here to tell you that what you want and sent your mind to, is possible — not without lows and hurdles, but at a certain point, I hope you’ll be able to reflect and see the wide bridge you’ve come across.

A year ago, I stood at this metaphorical bridge, it was shrouded in fog. I spent my last semester trying to prepare myself mentally for the move, planning out things I would do, but also partly expecting things to sort of “click” into place. Expecting things to click was a mistake. I will say, I am not great at dealing with change and transitional periods of life. I am not great at going all out with my life decisions and taking charge right away. I did have a plan, but the plan went wrong — I did things wrong. I was viewing this point of my life in a dragged out type of way. I felt like I should be having more arrival points or markers for what I should or should not be doing, instead of seeing it as a journey. That was one part of the problem.

I do not recommend moving across the country without a job. Usually people relocate and move because of jobs, I can see why. Even just typing that out, I can’t believe I did that. It was not comfortable.

I wish I could have known beforehand how lonely it felt at times.

I had a lot of solitary time. Aside from the part-time work, job applications, and networking, I felt aimless, like there there was no one around me who knew what I was going through. My friends had moved back to their hometowns, had opportunities lined up for themselves, and or were still in the same areas and hanging out. I felt uninspired and disconnected from everything that I enjoyed and made me, me. I lost interest in playing my viola for a bit because I hadn’t yet found or joined a group to make music with. I didn’t work out because I hated getting catcalled while running outside and a gym membership would have made me broke. I didn’t leave my apartment much because getting around would mean spending money that I couldn’t be frivolous with. My significant other had started their job on the Hill that had been lined up for 4 months and wasn’t going through what I was. I was ashamed to tell my parents what I was feeling because they would tell me to come back, and I would feel like a failure.

I wish I had told myself that I can do it.

I didn’t tell myself this enough. I had a lot of self-doubt. After all the celebrations after graduation, and the closure I thought it would bring, the same anxieties and issues I thought I had worked through fully, followed me. They compounded from an unfruitful 9-month job search, a strained social life, and a physically far and disperse support system. I had to take control of my life and I had to hustle.

To find a job, I connected with anyone I could, Scripps alumnae at all different career levels and years out of higher education, colleagues of family members, and cold calls and emails to contact information I found via LinkedIn or Google searches. To meet people my own age, I reached out to old acquaintances and made the point to my significant other I wanted to meet their friends. To find music opportunities, I found online groups via meetup.com and marked the next open rehearsals and auditions in my calendar. To get some exercise I did body-weight exercises in my tiny apartment with nothing but a chair and filled orange juice containers as weights. 

I was not always consistent, in doing these things. I’d slip, I’d get back up, and repeat it all again. The point is that I started, each choice made a positive impact on shaping my career path and how I wanted to live my daily life, and eventually they led to more opportunities and a stronger version of myself.

I wish I could have known sooner how to be the best version of myself for myself.

This will always be part of the journey. I was lost a year ago, few things held together the semblance of this fake feeling, across country, east-coast life I had put myself in. In reality, it was all on me, to do the best things, for me, to not cheat myself of opportunities and putting myself out there. The little glimmer of self-confidence that was there, shone through, at least a little bit everyday in the small steps I took to take control of my life. Three weeks after graduation, I had an informational interview that led to my first full-time role after graduation, an internship as an executive administrative assistant.

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Next week, I’ll be writing about networking and informational interviews, specifically when I was doing them post-college without full-time employment, and how those are different. 

Till then, soak up the sun (& wear sunscreen), readers!