Learning to talk about your job

As a senior on the verge of graduating college, I didn't particularly look forward to the world beyond because I never had much information about it. My friends who had already graduated seemed unable to illustrate what life was like in their jobs after college. I noticed that in response to the question, people fall into two categories when you ask them what do for a living: one is self-loathing and the other is people in non-stop interview mode.

The first is the self-loathing 20-something who doesn't think much of what they do. They might say, "I just work for a non-profit," even though that doesn't explain too much. Defining your life by your company's designation in the U.S. 401K tax code seems to be trendy and I'm not sure why. These people are depressing to listen to and they are probably depressing themselves whenever they speak about their job. When you ask them how life is after college, they often say "nothing much, I just work," as if they're in serving time in prison. Most of their advice centers on enjoying college life while you can because it all goes downhill from there. There probably are few worse pieces of advice one can receive and hopefully most college students will not take it to heart.