Update to "Bittersweet Goodbye"

I hate cherries, but I needed a picture of something

There's no better way to dampen your spirits than a nice little visit to your campus Career Services!

So, as you know from the last past, today was my last day at my job. It was pretty emational and full of hugging and and kind, parting words. I was even given a little gift bag: a Lauder c bag (always good to represent), a very good quality Lauder water bottle (can never have too many of these, and this one was way better than the cheap ones the university hands out to undergrads at events), a Lauder black leather traveling wallet (for carrying your passport, money, ID, etc when you travel), a 2 GB USB drive, and a personalized card form one of our coordinators, whom I became great friends with (I admit that I did get a little misty in the eyes when I read it...and I promised myself I wouldn't cry!).

All was going well, until I had my appointment with Career Services after work. This was my first trip to Career Services in almost a year. I actually had decided to not go back after my last visit, but had recently quite accidently got in contact with one of the counselors (long story), so I felt abligated to make an appointment. Honestly, every time I go to career services I feel defeated and depressed, and this time was no exception.

The career councelors like to fill your ears with a lot of empty talk that only wastes valuable time, especially since all apointments are only supposed to last 30 min, no matter what. The counselor I talked to today had a generally defeatest attitude throughout the whole meeting. I began by telling her that I was looking into working for universities, to which she replied (paraphrasing a bit of course) "Well universities don't really like hiring people who have graduated in the last year or so because of student confidentiallity. Actually we had a lot of graduates from 2011 and 2012 apply to our last position, and we didn't even look at those applications." Wow, talk about being encouraging! Although this maybe true, to tell someone this is basically saying, "If you're a recent graduate, don't even bother applying because no one is even going to look at your application." People are often frustrated and discouraged when they go to Career Services in the first place, so the job of the councelors should be to encaurage as well as give advice, not crush any glimmer of hope that person my have at finding a job. Basically, all she did was go over my resume and a cover letter and give me some formating suggestions, which are, of course, always important, but that anyone could have basically given me. Of course by the time she finished doing this, our 30 min were up, and the little advice she did give me (to keep doing informational interviews), was something I had been doing for the past 3 months now.

I'm not saying Career Services is a waste of time, but I have gotten a billion times more great, applicable advice and tons of encauragement in the last 3 months from my supervisors and other administrators than I had gotten in nearly a year from Career Services.

Sorry for this rant, but I just had to get it off my chest, and now I feel all happy and wonderful again, and ready to enjoy my Friday!!!