Life now revolves around the search for a practicum, the working-in-the-field capstone to the IEM degree. As soon as my alarm goes off, I check my phone to see whether I may have magically received a job offer in the middle of the night.
Concentrating on class is a struggle despite my excitement for the topics I’m studying, which include intercultural competence, student services, study abroad, program design/assessment, and service learning. My mind wanders and attempts to imagine a life less than two months from now. Huge questions loom over me. Do I care more about location or institution or job duties? How married am I to a specific area of the field? How great does the opportunity need to be to convince me to go unpaid? Do I prefer the flexibility of an internship or the security of a permanent position? How long should I hold out before choosing something less than my ideal? And how will I survive when the amazing people I met here, who supported me through the ups and downs of the grad school experience, scatter to chase their own questions?
It has already begun. Almost every day another classmate announces a solidified practicum plan. In between classes I comb through the job boards. Am I qualified? Will my transferable experience be enough? I fill out applications, pausing each time to complain to anyone around about needing to electronically input my resume, with the required but completely erroneous detail of my previous employers’ physical addresses. Then I upload the actual resume. Search for the mission statement; modify the cover letter. Send. And wait.
Walking home the long way along the ocean, I breathe in the salt air and listen to the sea lions, and wish I had more time to spend here in beautiful Monterey. I make a mental note to look for more local jobs when I get home.