Joining real world means reliving freshman anxieties

As a senior at midterms time winter quarter, I’m really
ready to graduate and join the real world. And until recently, the
only thing holding me back from truly wanting to be done with
school was the vision I had of my post-college self as one of the
jobless and homeless people occupying a bench on Le Conte
Avenue.

But then I actually got a job offer. And while it relieves my
anxiety about the future, I feel a bit like a senior in high school
about to become the lowly and awkward college freshman.

For instance, Friday night I decided to go out with a friend
from the place that hired me. As someone soon to join the work
force, I decided that I needed to act like my knowledge of Westside
nightlife extended beyond Maloney’s and BrewCo. So, I
casually suggested that we go to Q’s.

Since I lived closest to the bar, we met at my Westwood
apartment to call a cab ““ one of the annoying necessities of
going out anywhere further than Wilshire Boulevard.

However, my search for a cheap bottle of wine reminded me of my
broke-student status. And I was made aware just how
“college” my apartment was by comments of how it
reminded my friend of her days at UCSB. Like the fact that I have
three roommates packed into my tiny apartment. The overflowing
trash can that everyone is too stubborn to take 20 yards to the
dumpster. The poster and magazine “artwork” hanging up
in our room. Not exactly the sophisticated impression I was hoping
to create.

Once at the bar, I was secretly relieved that I had decided to
pair a blazer with my shorts so I looked like I belonged in the
professional crowd rather than in the nearby Maloney’s
line.

Then I had the startling realization that I looked like the
crowd of self-important middle-management guys in suits for which
Q’s is notorious, and who I’d always made fun of. But I
guess in that sense, I did fit in.

While we were sitting at the bar, a group of guys who my friend
knew from college came in. She introduced me and I learned that
they were in some type of science graduate program at UCLA.

Then, one of the guys started freaking out about how there were
all these undergraduates at Q’s and he recognized some girl
in a class for which he’s a TA.

“It’s so uncomfortable running into them,” he
told me. “I mean, she saw me with a beer. She knows that her
TA drinks.”

So while I was pointing out that seeing someone with a beer is
different from seeing them passed out in a bar, I was trying to
figure out how to keep the subject of what I did from coming up,
since I was clearly one of the undergraduates invading Q’s to
bust TAs.

It reminded me of going to parties my freshman year and figuring
out ways to artfully avoid telling people I was a freshman who
lived in the dorms. Like instead of saying I lived in Hedrick,
I’d say that I lived near the north gate to Bel Air.

But it’s not just our social lives that are going to
change after graduating to bring us back to that bumbling,
unrefined age associated with being a freshman.

After four ““ or five, for many UCLA students ““ years
at this school, many of us are on the leadership teams at the
various clubs and organizations we’ve been involved in.
We’ve mastered just how much class we need to attend to get
the grade we want and how much time to leave ourselves to write a
paper the morning it’s due and still finish on time

And now, all of a sudden, we’re about to be tossed into
positions at the bottom of the corporate ladder, running errands
for people higher up and having to earn the right to contribute our
two cents all over again.

But while it’s scary and it might be tough working long
hours and learning how to pay rent and live off of a starting
salary, I’m excited to try my hand in the real world.

E-mail Rodgers at [email protected].