The View From Here: Recent College Grads at Home

Maria Shiiba commutes to work through the Princeton Avenue underpass. Photo: Rachel Carp

Morgan Waters never imagined herself working her first post-college job from her pink-walled childhood bedroom.

“What I pictured, it would be the ultimate kind of freedom and independence that I had a taste of in college, but taking it to the next level,” says Waters, who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May. Now, after four years of forsaking Wawa for Sheetz, she’s back in Wallingford working remotely for Cal Cunningham’s North Carolina senate campaign. “What I’m doing now, it feels like the opposite of that freedom,” she says. “It feels like I’ve reverted back to high school.”

As recent college graduates, my Strath Haven High School classmates and I had very different visions for 2020 than the pandemic-ravaged world we live in now. We pictured ourselves moving into new apartments in new cities, turning over new leaves and sipping the sweet nectar of adult independence. We pictured ourselves heading to Target for professional blazers and slacks to dress-to-impress at our real adult jobs. But, as things have turned out, our “new apartments” look awfully similar to our childhood bedrooms, and we can get by just fine without the slacks.

“I might still subconsciously assume that I’m going to wake up from this Groundhog Day dream,” says Maria Shiiba, who graduated from Queen Mary’s University in London last spring. After four years of big-city living across the pond, Swarthmore’s narrow streets and boutique storefronts feel extra small. Last year, her daily commute consisted of dodging bodies as she shuffled to catch the crowded Tube. Now, her walks to her nannying job through the Princeton Avenue underpass are quiet, her only company the occasional morning runner. 

Shiiba is working part-time while she takes classes that she hopes will lead to nursing school. But like many recent graduates, what she wants from her future is still fuzzy. “Pandemics are anxiety inducing,” she says. “Graduating from college and trying to figure out life is confusing.” She calls trying to process the two together – especially after four years in London – “somewhat of a comically disorienting dream.”

On top of the daunting, confusing pursuit of figuring out what we want to do for the rest of our lives, we have graduated into a difficult job market. Listings on the job site Indeed have diminished; in April, new job postings were down by nearly 50% from April of the previous year. And, for some of us, jobs we thought had been secured vanished into thin air. 

After spending two summers in Los Angeles pursuing a career in the entertainment industry, Liza Babin, a 2020 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, had lined up a job at a talent agency in Los Angeles. But after learning that her company could no longer accept new hires, Babin found herself unemployed and living thousands of miles from Hollywood.

“Location was supposed to play such a critical role in the industry I longed to be a part of,” she says. “Now, I have to work twice as hard to stay connected.” Though she has now secured a remote public relations job with a company based in New York City, she hasn’t given up on the West Coast; she still spends hours a week placing networking calls to Hollywood from her family’s kitchen table in Wallingford. 

Despite all this, we’re the lucky ones. While we’re confused and anxious, often feeling trapped by the pandemic and the eerie deja-vu of life back at home, we know we are privileged to have safe, comfortable places to live and loving families that have taken us in. And while we’re not exploring cozy coffee shops or bar hopping in glamorous new cities, watching Swarthmore’s trees burst with fall colors for the first time in four years isn’t too bad. 

“There are some real upsides to starting my first post-grad job from my parents’ home,” says Babin. “I can work in my pajamas, with my dogs beside me, get my parents to help me edit emails, and save money on rent.” 

Waters, too, appreciates the glory of saving money, as living at home cuts out the thousand-dollar-a-month expense of a tiny, big-city apartment. “I’m saving immediately out of college, which is rare,” she says. As for the pandemic, she’s grateful to be healthy and safe; she knows it has been “so much harder for people in poor health and harder economic situations.”

Shiiba echoes Babin’s and Waters’ sentiments. While she’s sick of being the “farewell committee,” stuck here while waving goodbye to the few of her friends who have taken on graduate school or braved the pandemic to move to new cities, she’s grateful for the moments she’s been able to spend with people she loves.

“Some days are hard,” she says. But, she adds, she’s grateful “this has allowed me to slow down and appreciate my family, my friends, and my community.” 

Rachel Carp graduated from Tufts University in 2020. She lives in Swarthmore.