Will I get anything out of college other than the experience and debt?

Maybe I’m crazy, but lately I’ve been feeling like I’m extra behind in life. Yes, I might be a twenty-year-old college student, but as of right now, I feel like that hasn’t gotten me very far. I mean I can barely even find a part-time summer job. It’s rough on us college kids. It’s like no one wants to hire you because they don’t want to take the time to train a temporary employee. But they don’t take into account that we have bills, tuition and loans to pay for. We have to start somewhere. I don’t know about y’all, but sometimes I feel as though it’s almost like I’m being punished for choosing the college-path in this game of life.

What I’ve been noticing, though, is that almost everyone I graduated high school with either has a baby, is engaged or married, has their own house, has a pretty good paying job full time job, or is constantly buying brand new cars—some of them even have all of those things! Me? I’m sitting here hopping between a dorm in the fall and spring to one of my parent’s house in the summer, trying to find and live off a minimum-wage-paying part-time job, and struggling to pay my car note every month. Not that I’m in any rush for the baby or the husband, but I’m like dang, why did am I even in college when people that didn’t go are clearly doing just fine without an education?

I’m not going to lie, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Especially once I start looking at all the debt I’ve accumulated in student loans. And not to mention when I get to thinking about all the people that have Bachelor’s or master’s degrees that are stuck managing places like McDonald’s because they can’t get the dream job that they’ve always wanted. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m sure that’s not the career most people have in mind when they make the decision to go to college. Honestly, I get scared to death thinking about where I’ll be when I graduate in two years. How long will it take me to find a career and not just a job? A month? Six months? A year?? Will I ever have a house of my own? Will I ever be able to financially support a family? Will I ever have any of those things in life? Or am I going to be living with one of my parents, getting twenty-five hours a week at a clothing store, and never be able to experience what it’s like to be independent in all aspects? I don’t know about y’all, but I’d like to be a baller one day too.

I try to keep in mind that we might just be seeing the part of people’s lives on Instagram and twitter that they want us to see (the houses, the cars, the shopping sprees). I’m sure they have struggles just like me, it just doesn’t show. I’m trying to keep my eyes on the prize—that degree—but it gets really hard to stay optimistic about it sometimes. Do y’all ever wonder about these things too, or is it just me?