The 2011 graduates have just walked the stage and are preparing themselves for the great adventure to follow. Mixed emotions are flooding through them; “Am I ready? Will I find a job related to my degree?”
There are many paths a graduate can follow once they’re thrown out into the real world to look for and pursue the career path they want, but it’s no secret that the path is never straight and narrow.
How many changed their majors? What percentage of graduates actually move out? What percentage moves back in with their parents?
What’s the typical amount of jobs one has to apply for before finding one that they get their foot in the door with?
The following infographic compiles data from a 2011 graduate survey to show you what you can expect.
Source:Adecco USA
Hey guys, Jesus here. Tomorrow’s the big day! Rapture! So psyched! First of all, not all of you are coming. Eek. Sorry bout that. It’s really just a matter of space. Movies for some reason have depicted heaven as this endless cloud terrain, with room for everyone. Nope. It’s actually about the size of a Best Western, which by the way, you’ll all be staying at on the way. Have to make a pit-stop in Briarcliff to visit a friend from college, who when I mentioned I’d be on earth for a day was like “oh you should swing by while you’re in town.”
Anyway, here are a few things you should know.
1. I Haven’t Finalized the List Yet, So Everybody Should Be Living It Up
Okay, so I kind of dropped the ball on deciding who’s coming. The date just sort of crept up on me. I know, I know, what’s the point of even having a Google Cal if I’m not gonna check it. What I’m getting at is that all bets are off right now. I could easily forget someone that totally deserves to ascend to heaven. So live it up! If you’re a family man who wants to spend his time with his children, you should do that – especially since I CAN’T STAND kids and will only bring a select few. If you love fishing, fish. If you’ve got a couch cushion fetish, which I totally get, go fuck some couch cushions. Who am I to judge? JK.
2. Heaven Doesn’t Have Three-Pronged Outlets
Sorry again, guys, but when I designed the place, I didn’t really account for the types of electronics we’d have now. We can totes stop at Radio Shack along the way. Also while there we can make sure all of their employees know we’re not saving them. Fuck ’em, right? It’s their own fault for not being Christian… and selling the best products 2003 had to offer.
3. It Gets Really F–king Hot Up There, So Be Comfortable Showing Some Skin
Again, chalk this up to a lack of foresight on my behalf when planning heaven. Though honestly, the sun wasn’t as hot back then. If anything it’s your fault and global warming (which is absolutely happening, by the way) has caused that place to be a sauna. I mean, we’re like four miles from the sun. It’s a dry heat, yes, but an oppressive, often deadly, dry heat.
Anyway, what this means is that I’ll probably only bring people that are in decent shape – folks who I can stand to look at while we cruise around the clouds in our tank tops. So I know this excludes 99% of the people who filled the streets and subways over the last few weeks holding signs, warning others about the apocalypse. Sorry about that, guys. In my defense, I did organize that sweet bonding outing at Dave and Busters. The same Dave and Busters where you mouth-breathers stuffed your faces with jalapeno poppers, which ironically is why you won’t be coming to heaven.
4. This is specifically for Kirk Cameron
You have one day to tone it down. ONE. Then maybe I’ll consider bringing you. And if I do, you are prohibited from mentioning the following:
-The time you unplugged Stephen Hawking’s voicebox. Why can’t you understand it was a “had to be there” type of moment?
-That you’ve seen Alan Thicke naked
-That I’m really doing myself a disservice by not watching The Left Behind series. I’ll watch it when I watch it, Kirk.
5. Everybody Who’s Getting Raptured Gets to Bring a Friend
See? There’s some good that can come of this. (Plus, that adorbz picture to the left will be in everyone’s cloud when we check in.) But just know that I have to approve the friend. It has to be someone that I can see myself being friends with independently. I mean, I’m creating a society that will last for eternity, so I’ll want people I will look forward to spending time with. Anyway, here’s what I look for in a friend: Hot girls with speech impediments that have lowered their self-esteem and are thus grateful that I’m showing them attention.
6. Don’t Look God in the Eye When Talking to Him
Seriously. Heaven essentially is God’s power trip and we’ll all be a lot happier if we play by his rules. Them’s the breaks.
According to Christian radio host/old-timey nutjob Harold Camping, the Rapture will occur this Saturday, May 21. On Saturday, all of Camping’s followers — an estimated 200 million — will be taken into heaven as God’s chosen people after earth is ravaged by a massive earthquake, set to strike at 6 pm. No word on which time zone that will be. The end of the world as we know it, then, will take place five months later on October 21. Oddly enough, I feel fine about all this nonsense.
However, for those worried about the fate of humanity, I have prepared a list of the ten best last songs on an album. These final tracks are the last glimpse we have of a certain album — that last gasp of air before the silence comes and we have to either play the album over again or move on with our lives. Since the end is nigh, we might as well celebrate those songs that act as small reminders that our lives are, in fact, finite.
“The Repudiated Immortals” — Of Montreal, from 2005’s The Sunlandic Twins
This is probably my favorite last song on the list. Many Of Montreal fans get bogged down by Hissing Fauna and False Priest, yet I believe The Sunlandic Twins is Kevin Barnes’ best work. To put such a peppy, upbeat song like “The Repudiated Immortals” as the last song on the album is a brilliant move — it’s perhaps the best song on the album.
“A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free” — Elliott Smith, from 2004’s From a Basement on the Hill
This is, for all intents and purposes, the final song on the final album from Elliott Smith — an album, might I remind you, that was posthumously released after Smith’s death from an apparent self-inflicted knife wound in October of 2003. It’s a stripped-down, sombre offering from Smith, a fitting end to one of the greatest singer/songwriters of our time.
“Chonkyfire” — Outkast, from 1998’s Aquemini
Many a hip-hop album is ended with the standard “outro” or some asinine skit. Outkast, back before they got into polaroid pictures and roses, released perhaps their best album,Aquemini, in September of 1998. The album concluded with the perplexingly enjoyable “Chonkyfire,” proving that hip-hop albums can, indeed, end with an actual song — perhaps even a good one.
“Knights of Cydonia” — Muse, from 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations
The last track from the British rock trio’s landmark album can be seen as the real last gasp from the band, especially considering what their follow-up to Black Holes, The Resistance, turned out to be. Black Holes was overblown, grandiose and just fucking good. Sigh, things were so innocent back in 2006.
“Would?” — Alice in Chains, from 1992’s Dirt
Some might already disagree with the songs on this list — which may or may not matter since The Rapture is set for this Saturday at 6 p.m. “How could he start the list with such a weird of Montreal song?,” some might think. You know what? So I made a big mistake — try to see it once my way.
“Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt” — The Mars Volta, from 2003’s Deloused in the Comatorium
I have no problem admitting that I was a huge fan of At The Drive-In. Lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and lead guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López were always my favorite members of the seminal El Paso indie/punk band. Once the band split in 2001, The Mars Volta, of which Bixler-Zavala and Rodríguez-López were both members, quickly helped ease my pains. Deloused is still a favorite album of mine, and its final song, “Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt,” concludes the concept album with the eventual death of its main character, Cerpin Taxt, by an overdose of morphine and rat poison.
“Street Spirit (Fade Out)” — Radiohead, from 1995’s The Bends
One of Radiohead’s more celebrated songs — whether you are an original, Pablo Honey-era fan or a post-Kid A sympathizer — “Street Spirit” is arguably the best last song the band ever wrote. “Motion Picture Soundtrack” (the last track on Kid A) might be favored by some, but I’m more inclined to give The Bends some love. Besides, how many of those diehard Radiohead fans actually still listen to Pablo Honey these days?
“Train in Vain” — The Clash, from 1979’s London Calling
Fun fact about the final track on The Clash’s 1979 masterpiece — it was added to the album at the last minute, ending up in the song being left off the album sleeve. Good thing they decided to add the song — it ended up becoming the third and final single from London Calling, a rather fitting title for the album’s final track.
“Bold as Love” — Jimi Hendrix Experience, from 1967’s Axis: Bold as Love
The name of the song is in the album’s title — it has to be the best song on the album, right? You’re damn right. It was a toss-up between this song and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” from 1968’s Electric Ladyland. There’s something ephemeral about “Bold as Love,” a quality that transforms the song into one of the best songs to ever close out an album. Hendrix didn’t have to melt your face to show that he was the best guitar player that ever lived, he could do so in a mellow, somewhat toned down fashion. “Bold as Love” proves this point perfectly.
“Raining Blood” — Slayer, from 1986’s Reign in Blood
Graduation is an exciting time, but let’s face it: Commencement speeches aren’t always memorable. A completely unscientific poll of the GOOD office revealed that almost none of us recall our college commencement speakers, or what they said to us (although we suspect it was something like, “You’ve worked hard! Yay!”). So here are 10 commencement speakers—and their inspiring, funny, and just plain on-point words of wisdom—that we wish we’d heard on graduation day.
1. Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005: Jobs hits all the right notes in this speech, in which he shares his own humble upbringings and reflects on his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. He told the crowd, “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
2. Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), Lake Forest College, 1977:When Lake Forest asked Geisel to come accept an honorary degree, he agreed, but he then balked at being their commencement speaker. “I talk with people, not to people,” he told the school’s president. Geisel relented at the ceremony and pulled out a 92-word poem he’d composed, “My Uncle Terwilliger on the Art of Eating Popovers“.
3. J.K. Rowling, Harvard University, 2008: In her speech, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” Rowling reflects on her experience writing herself out of poverty. She told graduates about the benefits of failure, saying, “failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”
4. Bono, University of Pennsylvania, 2004: U2’s frontman struck the perfect balance between humor—he poked fun at annoying rock stars with causes and fans following him into bathrooms—andraising the call for this generation to end the spread of HIV and extreme poverty in Africa.
I’m not a hippie, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn’t.
I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don’t see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I’ve tried them all out but I’ll tell you this, outside this campus—and even inside it—idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don’t know. Where’s John Lennon when you need him?
5. Wynton Marsalis, Northwestern University, 2009: Marsalis is known for giving music and song-filled commencement speeches. At NYU’s commencement in 2007, he simply got on stage and played his trumpet for almost two minutes. Two years later, in 2009, he briefly spoke to a nearly rained-out crowd at Northwestern University, referencing lessons he’s taken from jazz legends and honestly addressing the realities of life.
6. Anderson Cooper, Tulane University, 2010: Cooper hilariously reflected on his own lack of memory of his commencement address and poked fun at liberal arts majors: “I, too, was a liberal arts major, so like you, I have no actual skill.” But Cooper also told the seniors how much he admired them for taking the chance on coming back to school in New Orleans a year after Katrina. “Your choice helped this city rebuild.. re-new…re-start,” he said.
7. Will Ferrell, Harvard University, 2003: True to form, during his speech, Ferrell impersonated George W. Bush and read a “message” from the president. “Bush” hilariously thinks he’s speaking to the Class of 2002 and butters them up by saying, “Make no mistake, Harvard University is one of the finest in the land. And its graduates are that fine as well. You’re young men and women whose exuberance exude a confident confidence of a bygone era.”
8. Ursula K. Le Guin, Bryn Mawr College, 1986: Le Guin encouraged students to keep their connection to the language of what’s right instead of the male-dominated language of success taught in society:
Our schools and colleges, institutions of the patriarchy, generally teach us to listen to people in power, men or women speaking the father tongue; and so they teach us not to listen to the mother tongue, to what the powerless say, poor men, women, children: not to hear that as valid discourse.
I am trying to unlearn these lessons, along with other lessons I was taught by my society, particularly lessons concerning the minds, work, works, and being of women.
9. Jon Stewart, College of William and Mary, 2004: Stewart headed back to his alma mater and delivered a classically funny, self-deprecating speech with lines like “In 1981 I lost my virginity, only to gain it back again on appeal in 1983″ and “You could say that my one saving grace was academics where I excelled, but I did not.”
Stewart then went on to declare his faith in this generation, and shared how after 9/11 he was depressed and had lost hope, until “one day I was coming out of my building, and on my stoop, was a man who was crouched over, and he appeared to be in deep thought. And as I got closer to him I realized, he was playing with himself. And that’s when I thought, ‘You know what, we’re gonna be OK.'”
10. David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College, 2005: Wallace gave one of the most beloved commencement speeches a mere three years before his tragic suicide. The speech refreshingly leaves the commencement address script and addresses the reality of life and our inner motivations:
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
