College Students Thirsting for Employment

Roughly for the past year or so, I have been looking for jobs that would assist me in finances that I would soon acquire through my college status; I was a freshman then, of Hawaii Community College on the Big Island, and my hopes were high. I knew that college would be much more difficult in a different sense compared to high school, so I didn't take as many classes. That being said, I had a lot of free time, which meant I could probably go for a job, get hired, get paid, and still have time to do my studies and excel in college.

THE HUNT BEGINS

Due to laziness, I didn't actually start "looking" until I moved into a house with my two siblings. To set this straight: finding a job was hard. Of course, with the little job experience that I had (almost 2 years at W.M. Keck Observatory in Kamuela as a Student Assistant), I didn't expect to find a job that would match my previous duties. I started easy, at the local food store closest to my home. I also took the time to go to another local food store and apply there to increase my chances of being hired. No success.

Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and another local food store. Didn't work out.

I tried at the university library as a library assistant. I thought I would do well because I had experience with filing and using computers - this was the perfect job for me. No success. I went to a mass-hiring for Target that would open soon in our community, waited among 300 prospective employees for 7 hours on good-looking heels, and got rejected just the same.

DRASTIC MEASURES

I swore I would never apply at McDonald's like many of my friends have, but hey, they got hired, so why not? I applied and an employee told me they were hiring, so my hopes shot up. A week or so later, I called them and it turns out, I just didn't get the job.

QUICK RELIEF

Finally, I got a break. My sister worked for a urology and needed some assistance, so I was lucky enough to get paid for a month's work of temporary service. But after that, the money got saved or used, and I was back to the same situation.

A friend of mine applied for a Taco Bell in another region and got the job because she knew one of the employees and her cousin knew the manager. I applied as well, with her and her cousin as references. It has been about 3+ weeks since then and still no call.

Can I give up now? No, I can't. After all this, I have no job, but now I'm paying the water bill, and with no income, I'll lose money fast. Add making dinner for the family for two days out of the week, plus feeding myself and my boyfriend on the weekends, and what will happen? I'll end up broke, even after the grant money and the one scholarship money I managed to get my hands on. What else happened? The state's tuition raised, as did the water and electricity. I hope the rent won't do the same.

HOPE?

In Obama's State of the Union speech on January 24th, he plans on doubling the workstudy jobs in the next five years, also stating that if we couldn't lower the costs of college, then to increase the number of grants and money being given out to college students in need.

But that won't happen now, which is what I need. I need a job now and I bet a lot of you do, too. Students with excellent grades such as myself still have to pine for scholarships instead of it just being given to us for our merit.

A NEVER-ENDING CYCLE

America is failing on that aspect of the "American dream." If we can't get a job, we won't get money for college, and if we don't go to college, our chances at having a high-paying job will suffer, and we will all just end up nowhere.

Really, when will we get a break?