Coming of Age

By Cate LeSourd

Our twenties and early thirties present unique challenges as we build our careers and our sense of community.

 

Most books about the post-grad years are written by psychologists and business leaders who offer recommendations based on their professional expertise. While helpful, it is rare to hear the voices of those currently living through this season of life. This book exposes the realities of the pivotal transition from college into adulthood from the perspective of other twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings.

 

Based on a survey sent to over a thousand individuals nationwide ranging from college seniors to those in their early thirties, Cate LeSourd uncovered their common experiences and emotions during these tumultuous years. Coming of Age: Our Journey into Adulthood examines the impact of this life transition on our careers, relationships, finances, community, social media, and mental health.

 

From a lens of honesty, vulnerability, and a bit of humor, Cate tells her own story alongside those of many others. Coming of Age shares insights, advice, and anecdotes from respondents that highlight the ups and downs about the post-grad years, the twenties, and beyond.

 

From navigating our careers to the shifting tides of relationships, this decade is filled with times of doubt and uncertainty. Thought you were the only one? It's time for us to talk about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oakdale Publishing Group LLC
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737766810

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Our transition from college to adulthood is filled with challenges, disappointments, and a lot of uncertainty. The fears and anxiety can feel crippling at times. We hesitate to share what is going on beneath the surface, so we feel isolated in our own experiences and emotions. If we take our cue from social media, we will have a flawed measure of comparison and a false view of reality.

Most books about our twenties are written from the perspective of psychologists, business leaders, and experts on how to live through those years. While helpful, it is rare to hear the voices of those who are in the midst of the transition.

I wrote this book because I often felt alone in my circumstances and overwhelmed with the uncertainties of my life, especially those related to my career. I want to tell my story because I do not want anyone to live in isolation, fear, or anxiety during this unique time in our lives. Our twenties are filled with periods of doubt and uncertainty. It is time for us to talk about them. It is time for this book.

My story, of course, is only one story. Over the course of several years, I sent out two questionnaires to over a thousand young adults across the nation ranging from college seniors to those in their early thirties. The first questionnaire focused on the initial adjustment from college, and the second questionnaire targeted the relationships and career changes that continue to evolve throughout your twenties and early thirties. Overall, the questions asked respondents to reflect on their own journey and provided an opportunity to share their difficulties and personal growth.

In reviewing hundreds of responses, I was most surprised by the depth and honesty of the answers. People wanted to talk about their struggles and challenges. For some, it was the first time anyone had intentionally asked about them. For others, it was their first opportunity to express their own thoughts and share their own stories.

This book discusses the major themes of the adjustment into adulthood from the perspectives of those who are currently living it. In addition to sharing aspects of my own life, I share quotes from the survey respondents to highlight the experiences, emotions, and thoughts that commonly occur during the post-grad years. Names, locations, and other identifying information were changed, unless otherwise approved, to protect the individuals who were willing to share in this book. I am deeply grateful for the openness of so many twenty- and thirty-somethings who shared their raw experiences with me. This book is far more complete with their voices.

As you read, I am eager for you to see purpose in your own story as it unfolds and take courage as you navigate this unique journey into adulthood.

PART ONE

ADJUSTING TO THE ADULT WORLD

CHAPTER 1

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Courage, dear heart.

C. S. LEWIS

I began my senior year of college with no idea what I wanted to do after graduation. I sometimes joked that I wished I could major in minors. My generalist nature was evident by my choice of academic courses. Throughout four years, I took a variety of classes and built relationships with professors from three entirely different fields of study: communications, human services, and entrepreneurship.

This breadth of experience contributed to the complexity of considerations for my post-grad plans, which ranged from applying for a year-long service fellowship in Africa to moving to Nashville without a job. Due to deadlines, I focused on fellowships and programs first. The delay was fortunate because I did not know specifically what kind of job I wanted.

Over the winter holiday break, I learned of a national competition at a large public relations agency. The prompt was to create an idea for a post-grad summer adventure to help experience the world beyond the cubicle. The winning candidate would secure a company-sponsored summer experience and a full-time job afterwards. I thought to myself, Can this be real? Then I looked at the deadline. It was due that day.

Immediately, I set to work. The competition limited candidates to stay within the fifty states, so I thought, Why not travel to every single one of them? With a campaign called #50stateswithcate, I planned to highlight the best views, sites, and aspects of major cities across the United States.

As I celebrated New Year’s Eve that evening, I joked with my friends how unbelievable the opportunity would be, not thinking it could ever happen. When I failed to receive any confirmation of my submission, the competition quickly slipped my mind.

A few weeks later, however, the company called, saying they loved my idea. They wanted me to move forward to the next round of the competition: create a video pitch. I had taken a few video courses in college, so I worked to show visually and creatively what my campaign would entail. Despite my computer crashing forcing me to learn new software, I submitted my video right before the deadline.

Within days, I received a phone call. The company was impressed with my video and told me I had moved on to the next round as one of six semifinalists. Employees across the company’s American offices would vote on their favorite video to choose the finalists.

When my university found out that I and a fellow student—a friend of mine—were both semifinalists in this national competition, the communications department wrote an article about us that circled around on social media.

The buzz began. Students mentioned it to me in class. Professors emailed me about it. Friends posted on social media that they were cheering me on. I even heard from people back home in Virginia, friends in Nashville, and family members across the country. Friends studying abroad contacted me. All of a sudden, my entire social network seemed to be aware of the competition. Then I learned I was one of the three finalists and would be flown to Chicago for a day of in-person interviews. My university posted a follow-up article. The student magazine interviewed me for its cover story. While I was humbled and grateful for all the exposure and affirmation, I also felt overwhelmed.

Friends’ opinions ranged from, You can’t turn down an opportunity like this to What about Nashville? Didn’t you want to move there? From no plan at all, my life was quickly unfolding in favor of this potential opportunity.

I flew to Chicago on February 23, one of the coldest days of the year. I experienced the city for the first time in its true form—at 7° with wind chills of 20 to 30 below. If I like the city in the dead of winter, I thought, surely I would like it even more in the summer.

Following a tour of the office, we three finalists rotated through group interviews, including a one-on-one with the CEO. Afterward, we were split up and tasked with a creative challenge, accompanied by our own personal videographer to capture our experience. Once we completed the challenge, we returned to the office and drew straws for the amount of prep time we would have to create a presentation.

I drew the short straw. After thirty minutes of pulling together a presentation, I walked into the conference room and presented to a room full of the company’s top executives. While I wished I could have had more time, I knew I had tried my best.

After a social hour with employees, the three of us shared a taxi back to O’Hare Airport. The entire trip had been a whirlwind, and I left eager and hopeful to win the competition.

Back on campus, I shared the unforgettable interview experience with close friends. The following week, the university magazine appeared with me on the front cover and a four-page article spread with images from the earlier photo shoot. Friends texted me photos and shared the article on social media.

The magazine staff did a wonderful job on the cover story, but inevitably I felt pressure to live up to the expectations since everyone in my social circles knew about this potential job opportunity. My fears were realized when, the very next day, the company informed me in a phone call that I was not the winner.

Rejection: We all know that gut-wrenching feeling. I’d had such hopes, and to end up so close to winning was a major disappointment. And while it crushed me to lose, the news was slightly offset by an offer for a post-graduate summer internship with the agency.

As I processed the results with close friends and family, I felt compelled to share the news more broadly, especially since everyone was curious about the results. Unlike many of my classmates announcing their job acceptances, I was announcing a job rejection. I felt it was important. Why am I sharing this on Facebook? We tend to only post positive life events, and I felt like because this potential job opportunity gathered so much publicity (even with the recent magazine article), I wanted to be able to authentically share the moments that we all face: rejection, disappointment, and hurt.

While most people are not the face of a national competition, there are countless individuals who apply for fellowships, graduate programs, or jobs and are rejected. We don’t typically promote or willingly share those realities, so it is easy to feel alone in our rejections or disappointments. Yet when it seems everyone else is sailing through their lives, we need to remember that to get a desired yes, we often have to deal with many discouraging and frustrating nos.

It is important to deal with the reality of disappointment. In times of rejection, it helps to give ourselves time and space to process it. When we identify our emotions and work through the disappointment or anxiety, we can move forward toward what could be next.

CONTINUED UNCERTAINTY

After accepting the fact that I had lost the competition, I considered the internship offer. A key factor in the decision related to the location. Chicago was not on my radar at all. If you had asked me before the competition, my guess was that I would move to Nashville after I graduated.

Why Nashville? I had spent a summer interning at a company the year before and had fallen in love with the city. In that time, I had developed meaningful friendships that would act as a foundation of community in Nashville. Even though I did not have a job lined up at that point, I felt confident the professional connections would help me integrate into the city.

Conversely, I had no prior connection to Chicago, so it would be an entirely new experience. Moving to Chicago, however, would provide an opportunity to live in a large city, which I had not experienced before.

If we view a decision as only what could be right and wrong, we imply that if we choose anything but the right option, the outcome will be wrong. That places a burden on us as decision makers. When I viewed my own choice as deciding between what was right and wrong for my life, I felt stress over the options, angst about the decision, and fear of the unknown. While it is important to be intentional about decisions and the potential consequences or results, I realized I did not need to add extra pressure or expectations on myself as it related to this one decision.

As I thought about it, I saw two good options—and one did not foreclose the other. Moving to Nashville after graduation would be less of a risk since I had already enjoyed living there for several months. But still, if I moved to Chicago after graduation and did not like the city, I knew I could always move to Nashville.

Realizing that my decision was not irreversible, I felt the freedom to choose Chicago, the lesser-known option. I moved to a city I had been in for a total of thirty hours, not knowing whether I would enjoy it there or whether an internship would result in a full-time job offer.

My post-grad story began with saying yes to more uncertainty. At the time I made my post-grad plans, I said yes to Chicago because it was a risk I was willing to take.

Graduation day came and went on May 23rd. I packed up the life I had known at college and entered the unknown world of post-grad life. On June 7, I flew to Chicago from Washington, D.C. and was picked up by a friend at the airport. For my first week in the city, I crashed on the couch of two friends—my only friends in Chicago at the time—as I waited for an apartment to become available. Not knowing how long I would stay in Chicago, I had decided to sublet an apartment for the summer before committing to a full-year lease.

On June 8, I started the post-graduate internship program. During the first day, I met the cohort of about twenty other twenty-somethings, received a mentor at the company, and was assigned client projects for the summer. My first adult job had begun.

Working at a large PR agency quickly became a meaningful and fun experience as my first job after college. Employees had a ping-pong table and unlimited supply of LaCroix in the kitchen, but more important, we worked for notable clients alongside creative people. Even though we were at the bottom of the career ladder, we were in a prime position to learn and have hands-on experiences with other professionals. I quickly developed relationships with fellow interns as well as others within the agency. From company-wide service days to ongoing weekly happy hours, I knew I was fortunate to work at a company that cared so much about its culture.

Each week, agency leadership hosted a lunch-and-learn for the intern class to learn more about the company and the PR industry. For a fresh college graduate, this focused attention and mentorship helped make the transition into the working world more seamless.

During the second half of the summer, we were split into two teams and given a prompt to create a PR campaign. In addition to the client work throughout the week, we worked on the campaign together after work hours. As the summer internship came to a close, we presented our campaign to the agency.

Throughout the time on this group project, we all interviewed for the eight open full-time positions. Although I knew there was a possibility I would not be offered a job, I had to decide if I would stay in Chicago whether or not I had a job offer. By this time, I had spent a summer in the city and fallen in love with Chicago. I decided I wanted to stay in Chicago, even if it meant delaying a full-time job again. When I prepared for my interview at the end of my internship, I also looked for an apartment. I signed a lease before I knew about the status of the job offer.

Thankfully, after days of waiting, I accepted a full-time position at the same agency. The wait was over. My career had officially begun.

NEW BEGINNINGS

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Chicago the following April as I commuted downtown on the train. I arrived at my desk and chatted with a few coworkers about our weekends. Checking my email, I began a quick assignment for a colleague.

An instant message from an executive popped up asking me to chat for a moment. Earlier that month, she had asked me about my calendar availability because she wanted to meet about an upcoming project. I assumed the meeting was to discuss that work, so I picked up my notebook and walked toward her desk. Before I could even say hello, she told me we should go for a walk.

We moved toward a nearby conference room, which was near the Human Resources and Finance departments. Conference rooms were hard to come by at the agency, so I did not think much about it. I walked into the room first and as I sat down, I saw the head of HR walking behind me. My heart sank.

The executive with whom I had worked closely did not say a word; she was quiet with a sad expression on her face. The head of HR quickly explained there had been some recent changes in clients. The resulting financial impacts affected me.

Your position has been eliminated.

No one can ever prepare you to hear those words. I burst into tears as the head of HR continued.

And today is your last day. We recommend that you leave immediately.

Those words hit me the hardest. My mind raced to my coworkers and how I would not get to say thank you and goodbye or have any sort of closure with the relationships I had built over the last year. I thought about my teams and how they would have to pick up my assignments with no notice. I felt responsible for my work and realized that I would not finish the assignments I had been working on that morning.

The rest of the meeting was a blur—something about my last paycheck, packing up my things, and how I was not the only one affected. They asked if I wanted to leave from the side door, but I said I would pick up my bag first.

They left me in the room and gave me a few moments to regain my composure before heading out. I knew crying in a conference room would not help, so I took a few deep breaths and stood up. In a haze, I walked toward my desk. I barely remember moving—it felt like a true out-of-body experience.

A mentor sat across from my desk, and I remember being concerned over what she would say if she saw my facial expression and watery eyes. But as I walked back toward my desk, I noticed she was in the middle of a meeting in another conference room. I did not get the chance to say goodbye.

Trying to be discreet, I closed my half-open computer, only to find it had already been logged out by the company. HR had said they would pack up my things, so I took one final look at my desk, picked up my bag, and walked out the door.

As I stood in the elevator bay next to the kitchen, I remembered an unopened package of hummus I had put in the refrigerator that morning. I walked toward the kitchen to grab it because that was three dollars that I now needed (the things that go through your mind when you are in shock). But when I tapped my badge against the electronic lock on the kitchen door, I discovered it was deactivated. I was already locked out. It was if I had never worked there.

I rode the elevator down to the lobby and walked through the foyer. Then I sat outside the building and called my parents to tell them the news. There I was: twenty-three years old, sitting on a stone bench, crying to my parents after losing my first job.

Minutes later, a few of my coworkers from my cohort came down and cried with me. They were just as shocked as I was. At that point, they had heard other colleagues were affected, so everyone felt a sense of fear and uncertainty. After a few minutes, they had to go back to work. I said goodbye, then watched them turn around and walk back into the office building.

Still in shock, I walked around the city and talked with a few college friends on the phone. I told my church small group and immediately received encouragement. That night, a group of my coworkers and I gathered to eat dinner together as we all processed the emotional events of the day. I was the only one from my cohort laid off that day.

My sudden layoff was a shocking and traumatic experience. I could never have prepared to lose my job in a matter of seconds. I could never have known I would be laid off about a year after graduating college. I could never have expected to have a major life crisis happen at twenty-three years old.

My life had changed instantly. Within minutes, I had been told my position was eliminated and to leave immediately. Within minutes, I had walked out without the opportunity to say proper goodbyes to any of my colleagues. Within minutes, I was out of a job, salary, and health benefits.

A day that had begun as any other day had left me unemployed and uncertain about what the next day held.

I also battled a sense of embarrassment. I had prided myself on checking all the boxes of becoming independent out of college. I accepted a job offer. I received healthcare benefits. I moved to a new city. I rented an apartment. I was paying off my student loans. Now, almost all of those decisions were forced to a halt or reversed.

Even though I was told that the layoff was not due to my performance, and even though I learned there were a number of people laid off that morning, I felt shame and fear that I had done something wrong. I could not help but wonder, Why is this happening to me? In light of how much time, money, and effort the company had invested into recruiting me to work at that agency, I was in utter disbelief that the company had decided to let me go a year later.

On the personal side, as someone who highly valued my interpersonal relationships, I felt a deep sense of pain knowing I would not have any sort of closure with my coworkers and teams. No goodbye happy hour. No email announcement. Nothing.

I applied for unemployment benefits and suspended my student loans. I sat on my bed crying, overwhelmed at the realities I now faced. As I started making financial decisions, I was afraid for my future and felt discouraged at being forced into survival mode. My life had taken an unexpected turn, and I was concerned how it would affect my career trajectory.

My mind loves to bridge connections and ideas, so I often try to understand or add meaning as to why situations unfold the way they do. Yet whenever I tried to make sense of what was happening, the thoughts would send me into a negative downward spiral.

I needed to accept the truth that I will not understand many trials and situations in life.

With a layoff, you are simply on the cut list of names. It is not personal; it’s just business. But it sure feels personal when it affects your life so personally. Even if the decision is not tied to our performance, we cannot help but feel worthless and doubt the value we bring to a company when we are thrown out at the first sign of financial trouble.

The day after I was laid off, I wrote a blog post that I shared with my social network. As my passion for speaking about difficult topics was increasing, I decided to share what happened. I was deeply moved by the friends and family who reached out to me during that time. While I do not wish that experience on anyone, I am grateful for the ways sharing my story led to encouraging words from friends and family across the country. Friends reached out to me about their own layoff experiences, which was a needed reminder that I was not alone.

Like anyone in a time of loss, I had a long, nonlinear process of grieving ahead of me.

GRIEF, INSECURITY, AND IDENTITY

It was hard enough job searching in college. Being unemployed as an adult felt like a different pressure. Since I was already living on my own and responsible for bills, I needed to find a