As far as I’ve been able to observe, the USC model is fairly simple. Pick a major, come to L.A. (not necessarily in that order), join some clubs, pick a new major, get a job/internship, pick a new major, make a lot of good friends, then graduate to follow your dreams in the trajectory of whatever career you think you’ll be successful in.
In my experience, all of these things have been true of my own path at USC. I was unsure of my major, so I tried a lot of things. I knew I wanted to be very involved (because white space on my calendar scares me), so I picked up as many memberships/jobs as possible. I’ve met a wealth of incredible people here, most of whom I’ve been able to form fairly deep friendships with. The one thing that sets me apart from most people on this campus — I think — is my career path. Or, better yet, my lack of one.
Rough approximation of my career path thus far.
I’m what you would call a relationship-focused person. Maybe you wouldn’t call me that, I don’t know. I’m not always hip with the lingo the cool kids are using. In any case, I have always* prioritized friendships and relationships over personal goals. I’m not sure why, or where this stems from, but it’s true about me and I don’t know if there’s any turning back at this point. After four years on a campus that seems to be so focused on career, though, I’m beginning to question whether my tendency to be centered around relationships is good.
(*trying to come up with a counterexample here, coming up short)
First, let me say that being career-driven does not make somebody unable to foster good relationships. Most of the people I know at USC will stop at nothing to reach their personal and professional goals, but most of them would still stop on a dime to help a friend in need, or get coffee with somebody who needed to vent to them. I think the difference between me and these people is that — at the end of the day — most USC students/grads are going to go where their career takes them.
The problem with me is, I don’t have a career to take me anywhere. In my four years at USC, no career or goal has stood out to me enough to the point where I would forsake all other things in my life to pursue it. When I was a freshman, I had to take an Intro to Journalism course (I was a Broadcast & Digital Journalism major at the time). In this course, our professor brought in several guest speakers who did nothing but curse their own career choices; one particularly memorable speaker told us that we’d never be able to settle down, or have a family, and that he was already on his second marriage and wasn’t even sure if that one was going to last. I was horrified. I told myself at that moment that journalism was not and could not be for me.
What I have instead of a career goal is a burning desire to be with the people I love. Again, not that career-driven people don’t want to be with their loved ones; it just seems as though the norm is to drop everything to do the thing you want to do. Maybe this is a sign I need to be working in a field that allows me to make new friends and continue deep relationships with old friends, but other than that I don’t have much to go on in terms of a career trajectory.
Secret dream career: where the government pays me to speed instead of the other way around.
In what is about to be a way-too-sappy paragraph (feel free to skip if romance nauseates you), I’m going to explain one of the scariest bits of this philosophy, the thing I’m terrified to admit to anybody because I can’t help but feel it’s the “wrong” thing to do. At this moment, there is nothing in the world that could get me to move away from Los Angeles, because this is where my girlfriend is going to build her career. Because her dream is to create and produce her own television series, she more or less has to stay in LA. That means I’m staying in LA.
Before I started dating Amy, did I think I was going to end up in LA after graduation? No way. Over the past summer I fell in love with Denver, and was pretty much set on moving to Colorado (pretty sure my brother is going to do it without me). This spring break, I took a trip to the Pacific Northwest and never wanted to come back. If I was a single man, I’d probably be packing my bags for Seattle or Portland come May 14. But I’m not a single man, and the fact of the matter is that being with Amy makes me happier than knowing I’ll get to spend my weekends biking up the Platte River to Rockies games, or taking afternoon trips to Gas Works Park. Even if it means putting up with the smog for longer than I intended, I have no problem setting aside those personal dreams for the person that I plan on spending the majority of my time with.
*drooling*
“But Kurt, do what you want to do!”
“Don’t let anyone tie you down, you can do anything you want!”
“You can’t be sure about any one person, why change your life for somebody else!”
All fair counterpoints, but the fundamental truth about me that I don’t expect many people to understand is that, to me, relationships are the ultimate goal. There are lots of things I enjoy doing, and lots of ways to make money. As long as I make enough money to have the time and resources to do the things I want to do with the people I love, I’m going to be happy. Sure, I won’t be happy working any job (I know from four days of internship experience that I can’t be under fluorescent lights for nine hours a day), but no matter where in the world I go, I’ll always be able to find something that I enjoy doing. And yes, I’m sure anywhere I go I’ll find friends and new people to spend time with. But for right now, I know the people I want to be with, so why shake things up
It’s true, I don’t and can’t know for sure if my relationship is going to last. That’s sort of the fun of it, and I like to think that I have to earn it every day (because she sure deserves it). But even the chance that it might work out in the long term is enough to keep me in the city of never-ending traffic, because I’ve found someone worth hanging on to, and I’m not going to let personal fantasies get in the way of that. Even if it means the next few years involve hopping back and forth from driving Uber to working bartending shifts before I can find something a little steadier. (Or until self-driving cars destroy the Uber economy.)
Me as Uber driver, probably.
I realize I may have let the USC community down when I say that I’ve gone through four years of undergrad without a clear path to “success.” I may not have millions to donate back to finally give the School of Dramatic Arts the building they so desperately deserve. I might not have a link to my own Wikipedia page. I may not have a company valued at billions at the IPO, but I sure would like to have people value my company.
And that’ll be my own personal brand of fighting on.
sceniorsctruggles 