Today, Friday, I was able to meet with Sara Gast, who is a career intern here at ED and, amazingly enough, is the first paid person at ED that I have met that is under 30. That being said, getting coffee with her and discussing her experiences during her senior year of college and her experiences so far at ED were a much-welcomed excursion. Now that is not to say that I do not appreciate the people I work with, but working with people my own age on a day-to-day basis is something I have realized that I miss a lot. In coming to D.C., I had assumed that wherever I ended up, I would be in an office filled with young, passionate thirty-somethings, not realizing that there are lots of career-agency workers. Having gone through this, I now know to be aware of this when I apply for jobs and future working experiences.

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Things from our conversation that were worth noting, given the fact that I will be applying for jobs and working in the next two years, are as follows:

• Senior year, people will stress about having their jobs/futures ironed out to varying degrees. It’s best not to get caught up in it, especially if you’re looking to get into a field that is not in the financial industry, because those other jobs look to fill their postings a few weeks to a month after they’re posted.
• Taking a year or two off to work before going on to graduate/law school can be a really good thing. If you’re focused and know exactly what you want to do, fine, go on. But if you’re not sold on the idea of what you’re doing and where you’re going, it can become easy to drop out as it becomes harder and harder to justify the growing debt when you’re not working and you see many friends earning money. Also, there are many opportunities to have schooling paid for. For example, ED will pay for its employees to get higher education if it can be proven that it will add to the performance of your job in some way.

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In sum, it was great to have the opportunity to talk with someone who was so recently dealing with the same issues I’m thinking about now. She was able to recount the feeling/emotions/reactions she had during her senior year, how she dealt with them, how she planned for work post-undergrad, and how she feels being in the federal government now.