I will never find a job

Earlier today, I sat down on the floor and cried hysterically for 10 whole minutes.

Despite the fact that I’ve been job searching off-and-on for oh, about a YEAR now (I had a summer job for a few months, plus a volunteer position for another one, which interrupted the process to varying degrees) it hadn’t really bothered me much. I figured eventually something would work out.

But I guess my most recent rejection letter was just the last straw, which has finally convinced me that I will just never ever be employed.

Two days ago, I applied to a completely basic, simple, straightforward posting for an “entry level mechanical engineer.” Today I got a rejection letter for it.

I would just like to ask: if I’m not qualified to be an entry level mechanical engineer, what the hell AM I qualified to be? I mean, an entry level mechanical engineer is EXACTLY what I am, BY DEFINITION.

So my bigger question is really, what exactly am I supposed to do now? I didn’t suffer through four years of MIT so I could get a nice cushy high-paying job. I really didn’t. I suffered through four years of MIT because I liked the place in a weird, twisted, masochistic way. I kept at it through the worst so that one day I could get A job. ANY job. Preferably one that I enjoyed or found meaningful or fulfilling, but really, just a job.

But apparently my mechanical engineering degree is not enough to qualify me to be an entry-level mechanical engineer. (Again, this is not a conclusion that I’m only drawing from one case today, but also all the others before it.) So I repeat, what exactly am I qualified for?

Maybe I can convince Starbucks that my mechanical engineering degree will help me understand how to operate the espresso machine.

I know I’m being overly dramatic and gloomy here, but it’s hard not to be when this issue literally consumes my whole life. I spend every day sitting at home wading through job postings and watching reruns of NCIS. On any given day, I am only guaranteed to interact with one person- my mother. Sometimes that includes my father, and on overly stimulating days when I babysit it includes a 10 month old baby. I leave the house about once a week to go grocery shopping. I think I have refilled my gas tank once, maybe twice in the last 2 months. The only thing that I did today besides eat, sleep, and cry about job searching was to get into a flame war with someone on Amazon’s review forums.

It’s a pretty depressing existence to begin with, and I honestly don’t know how to drag myself out of it.