字體：
Gangtok, India
It was a bit of a shock, losing all expectations. For years—all my life, really—parents, teachers, and guidance counselors had told me that if I went to a good college and did well, I would be able to find a job after graduation that would, with a little ladder-climbing, keep me comfortable and financially secure. After I graduated in May 2009, in political science, I moved back home to St. Louis to start my career, but there simply were no jobs to be found.
Over several months, I sent out more than 500 resumes for all sorts of jobs all over the country, but I got only two interviews and no offers.
I couldn't find a job, but neither could anyone I knew. Now, more than a year after graduation, most of my college friends still live at home, and many of those who have moved out are borrowing money from their parents to eat and pay rent. A few have internships, but most of those are unpaid, and few are likely to lead to jobs. Two friends who studied psychology for four years now work off the books at a sandwich shop. Another, who got her master's in development studies from Cambridge, became a barista at Starbucks.
Some are applying to grad school just to have something to do, but the prospect of racking up thousands more dollars in student debt is crushing. The rest are still looking, sending out resumes, going to career fairs, volunteering for experience, and networking. Some have given up. We are a whole generation graduating into a job market that has no room for us.
So I moved to India.
Two years earlier, I had spent a semester abroad in the Nepali-speaking regions of northeastern India, learning the language and culture through a fantastic study-abroad program at Pitzer College. In India, I met Pema Wangchuk, editor and publisher of Sikkim NOW, the most popular local English-language daily newspaper in the state of Sikkim. A couple months into my job hunt, I sent Pema an e-mail asking if he knew anyone who might be interested in hiring a young, enthusiastic American college graduate. "We'd be quite keen to have you here," he wrote back.
After lots of e-mails and late-night international phone calls, I got on a plane and went. I had been unemployed for eight months.
My arrangement with NOW is informal. I help out doing a little photography, a little feature writing, and a lot of copy editing. Native-level English proficiency is a rare skill in much of the developing world. I take garbled press releases from local nongovernmental organizations and government departments, and equally garbled correspondent reports from remote districts of the state, and fix the punctuation, syntax, usage, and spelling to turn them into real news stories.
I also write feature pieces for our `Sunday edition, interviewing NGO's about their projects and local experts about social trends. I'm learning a lot about reporting, writing, and running a small newspaper, not to mention life and politics in northeast India and Asia in general. I suspect I am getting more intimate and comprehensive journalism experience here than I would in almost any internship, temp position, or entry-level job that I could have found back in the States.
In exchange for my work, Pema found me a flat to stay in and arranged for my meals. The cost of living here is so cheap that, with my room and board taken care of, I can live comfortably on around $10 a week. If I were back in the United States, even with the most austere lifestyle, I would be costing my family far more than that by just eating their groceries, running their utilities, and burning their gas.
My Nepali, gone rusty in the two years since studying abroad, is getting better, and I'm picking up a few words of Hindi. Once a week, I volunteer at a small village elementary school, teaching tae kwon do. I've made some friends here to hike and go out on weekends with. Every day I see interesting and beautiful things: Tibetan monks playing soccer, stray dogs napping in twisty alleys, snow-covered mountains white (and high) as clouds.
When I Skype and correspond with college friends back in the States, their frustration with the job hunt is palpable, and I wonder: Why don't more recent graduates move to the developing world to wait out the recession?
Plenty of college grads apply for Fulbrights or the Peace Corps, but those programs are increasingly competitive. For those who don't make the cut, or who want to just try something different, why not design their own programs, as I have tried to do in Sikkim, finding NGO's, schools, businesses, or families willing to trade meals and a place to stay for help teaching English, writing grant applications, or editing press releases?
In tough economic times, living in the developing world actually makes a lot of financial sense. In the more prosperous 90s and aughties, plenty of educated and highly skilled Indians moved to America and Europe to find jobs. The cost of living there was higher, but if they made even a little above their expenses, that money would translate into a huge amount back home. What I'm doing is a reversal of that. With opportunities for making ends meet so hard to come by in the States, I have moved to a place where a little savings and family support go a lot farther. Globalization can flow both ways.
Making such a jump isn't easy. Working out visas and permits is always frustrating, and moving to India or Brazil or Ghana won't help pay off student loans—but then, neither will futilely sending out resumes every day while racking up credit-card debt.
Some parents may be nervous about letting their kids go abroad on their own, but to them I say: Stop worrying. In many parts of the developing world, Westerners are in no more danger than they would be commuting on the highway every day, and if your children are willing to work and give up a few luxuries, the trip will save you money in the end.
Though I suspect it isn't impossible to just pick a country, show up, and work something out, I'm not sure I would recommend that. My own "program" was made possible by the contacts I developed studying abroad. So even in a bad economy, a semester abroad—especially in a location more exotic than London or Paris—can be a great investment that opens a lot of doors.
Colleges can help, too. Academics are a worldly bunch, and universities could use their professors' contacts abroad to find informal volunteer arrangements for many graduates to support them for a year or two while the economy, hopefully, recovers.
It's raining today, and as I write this, I am sipping sweet tea and watching clouds dance like titans in the valley below. I grew up among the corn and soybean fields of the endlessly flat American Midwest, and the foothills of the Himalayas are an astonishing sight.
I'm not sure how long I'll stay in India. I'm returning home in November to spend the holidays with my family, and I may test the job market again. Asia is my economic escape hatch. If things don't work out in the States, I'll go back to a place where I can live cheaply and make my savings last.
There might not be room for us recent college graduates in the job market at home, but the world is a big place. I bet somewhere out there is an opportunity for each of us. So go.
Comments
As long as American college students prefer soft (and easy) subjects such as Political Science, Sociology or humanities and stay away from Biology, Chemistry or Math and Physics, landing good jobs won't get any easier - less than 25% of American college graduates major in hard sciences.
My son just graduated in computer engineering and recruiters were hounding him even before he graduated. I am Asian Indian, with lots of extended family here, and landing good jobs doesn't appear to be a problem - because Indian students by and large study science and technology.
JRR
Andrew's attitude is awesome and I wish more of my students would embrace creative solutions like his to the currently disappointing job market for graduates. Whether its at home or abroad, tapping into networks is the best way to find elusive opportunities.
Political Science and Sociology are hardly easy subjects! Come on. It's fair and valid to say that not enough students go in to the "hard sciences" (which is compared to the "soft" not the easy sciences), but not everyone can or should be a scientist, just like not everyone can be a plumber, a journalist, etc. A balanced society needs all kinds of disciplines and all kinds of people.
~摘自『零極限之富在工作』『零極限」工作事業篇和Q＆A解惑篇
Q:待業中如何才能找到好工作？A:不是為了待遇，而是為了自己而清理。這是因為你潛意識中的資訊(過去的記憶重播)，換言之就是你潛意識中『找不到好工作』的資訊被重新播放。具體的作法是先問自己:「到底是我潛意識中的哪些資訊使自己找不到好工作?」然後在心理對彼此部分默念「荷歐波諾波諾」的四句話，『對不起』，『請原諒我』，『謝謝你』，『我愛你』，已將它刪除。 建議大家要為了找到適合自己的工作而清理。
Q:如何找到令人充滿幹勁的工作？ A:請刪除『找不到充滿幹勁的工作』的資訊。 這是因為你潛意識中的資訊(過去的記憶重播)，換言之就是你潛意識中『找不到令人充滿幹勁的工作』的資訊被重新播放。具體的作法是先問自己:「到底是我潛意識中的哪些資訊使自己找不到令人充滿幹勁的工作?」然後在心裡對彼此部分默念「荷歐波諾波諾」的四句話，『對不起』，『請原諒我』，『謝謝你』，『我愛你』，已將它刪除。 成為零的狀態之後，適合自己的工作也就是令人充滿幹勁的工作就會出現，拋開這各也想，那個也想的欲望，就能得到一切。
Q: 忙得沒有時間?A:成為零的狀態，就會有寬裕的時間。清理自己，成為零的狀態。若能達到零的狀態，就能調整出最適合的環境，穫得寬裕的時間，甚至會有多餘的時間。以上是針對『忙碌』所做的基本答覆，另外也有其他解決方法，就是刪除你淺易適中『忙的沒有時間』的資訊(過去的記憶)。
具體的作法是先問自己:「到底是我潛意識中的哪些資訊使自己忙得沒有時間?」然後在心裡對彼此部分默念「荷歐波諾波諾」的四句話，『對不起』，『請原諒我』，『謝謝你』，『我愛你』，已將它刪除。
被譽為吸引力法則終極版的「荷歐波諾波諾」，運用在事業、職場上，會發生什麼效果？神奇的四句話，不僅可以解決所有問題，更能帶來心靈、精神、身體、金錢、物質等全方位的豐富，而且是沒有極限的豐富。 誰要為不景氣負責？是政府、企業、顧客……還是你？世界金融海嘯威脅仍在，每個人都認為應該改變，卻沒有任何人提出解決方案！
被喻為世界上最奇特的治療師修‧ 藍 博士，繼成功治癒夏威夷州立醫院的精神病罪犯後，將這神奇的夏威夷療法「荷歐波諾波諾」應用在商業上，透過清理自己的過程，將我們帶進具有生命的工作及事業中。這與以往單純追求大量財富、物質的商業有很大的差異，它能帶來全方位的豐富，包括心靈、精神、身體、金錢、物質等，創造出充分供應你和家人，以及你所愛的人所需財富與物質的資源。透過這樣的滿足，你可以為自己和其他人的靈魂帶來莫大的喜悅。
