When I applied to DU, a big draw was the six-week break. We never had more than 14 days off in high school; to have 42 would be amazing. Ha, I thought wrong. Six weeks was simply too much time off.
It felt like summer break, part deux – only this time none of my high school friends were around to play ultimate frisbee with and I had no job.
I tried to plan well in advance of ways to occupy my time over break. Before Halloween I started submitting online applications. Apparently that was not early enough to be hired by Macy’s, Target or Blockbuster.
Just yesterday I received an overdue e-mail from Target Jobs. “We are unable to offer you a position at this time, but we do appreciate your interest in Target,” it read. No shit. Don’t worry, Target, I had long before given up on my quest to be employed by your company. Even Bruegger’s Bagels turned me down over break. C’mon, how hard is it to make blueberry bagels?
After week two, I stopped my job search indefinitely. It’s a full-time job watching How I Met Your Mother reruns, I rationalized pathetically.
I couldn’t even get a job at Goodwill, where my dad works as a case manager for job placement. If that’s not irony, this is: lacking any income, I bargain shopped at four Goodwills in Colorado Springs and the only one in Pueblo, Colo.
Looking back, I realized my job situation – or lack thereof – was the result of a poor economy, a resume that tried unsuccessfully to hide my inexperience in retail and an awkwardly long break from school during which no boss was willing to hire me for seasonal employment. And that’s something DU does not advertise when it boasts its painstakingly-long winter break over other Colorado universities.
They don’t explain how hard it is for students to go back home without work, or any activity, for that matter. You can’t even get any homework done over break, seeing friends isn’t an option until the very last week, and you go from being inundated with e-mails in your DU account to wishing and hoping that someone, anyone from school would e-mail you, even a professor. And I’m sure moving back in with my parents didn’t help, either.
