Hannah Suarez

There have been many articles have been written that has encouraged doom and gloom for us recent graduates.  Graduate jobs crisis for class of 2009.  Too many graduates, very few jobs. Economic crisis puts ‘graduate careers’ on hold. How has the global financial crisis affected you? It wasn’t just the news articles but some of the actual comments that these have generated.  Or the stories like the time when this graduate from New York sued her college because she remains unemployed.

Even the lingering question over what’s next is still in the air.

When December came, I was in slightly unstable territory.  I confess that in the past two years of university I have always seen myself in a position that is different to the position that I am in right now.  So when the time came for me to face the actual truth – that my study is now done and what I think I will do after uni is not going to happen anytime soon – it took weeks for me to get used to it and actually embrace it.

Stepping into the dark. Image by Hannah Suarez 2007

The truth here is that I am an entrepreneur.  I have somehow managed to be an entrepreneur.  I don’t think I even learned what this word meant when I started uni.  But I am apparently – according to those Twitter lists, according to other people, according to myself and what I have been up to.

You know what’s very interesting?

For one thing, I have had this thing called ‘an entrepreneurial flair’ for a while now.  Since I was at least 11 to be exact although it may have been earlier.  When I was in single digits, I remember spending an afternoon taking care of a small bakery (because my nanna was dozing) that my parents owned and doing such a good job at it that I decided to pay myself with a piece of bread when I have sold enough.  I remember having dinner at a friend’s house when I was at high school and announcing to my friend’s mum that I am going to start a company.  Throughout high school I did projects in my own time – they weren’t extra-curricular – and in Year 9 I had my first paid client which was a NSW record label that is run by an ex-SBS producer.  He gave me a cheque even though I never gave him an invoice because I had no idea what to charge.

What’s perhaps really interesting is that…I may have tried to change myself. Or convinced myself that it wasn’t the case.  At the end of my first year at uni, I landed a few graphic design job interviews.  I went to two interviews – one was disastrous and the other two made me realise that I didn’t really want to work as a designer (also, I didn’t know how to use Illustrator) for anyone so I changed course. Now,  I have finished studying my media and communication degree and none of the job ads out there really appeal to me and what I want to do.  Despite doing a lot of things to ensure that I get those recommendations, that work experience, the relevant people to tap into all of which are supposed to lead to a full-time job working for a company or for the government that I’ll be in for years and years and years…isn’t really going to be happening anytime soon.  Because I don’t want it to happen.

Yes. I have graduated as an entrepreneur.