Going back shortly before my first post on here, I graduated from West Virginia University in 2013 and I was completely lost. Throughout my life, to that point, everything had been a path that was already laid out where the next step was always the pursuing the next level in education. Going from Elementary to Middle, Middle to High, High School to college, etc.
The time leading up to and shortly following when I graduated was great. I was so excited and proud to have been graduating, and I was so happy and had a genuine feeling of accomplishment. The joy faded a bit when time crept away from graduation and the real world sank in. Things began to be a drawn-out time of searching for work and figuring out what I was going to do next. When I was not interviewing, I was looking for a job, and when I was not looking for a job or interviewing, I was completing odd jobs here and there for my family to make a little money to support myself. Summer went by and moved into Fall. As Fall progressed I was continuing to interview but kept finding the same thing: A Bachelor’s degree really was not much. At this point, I was looking for two types of jobs, a retail job to pay the bills, but also a professional job to start my career. The issue I ran into was that employers put me into a couple categories: 1) “You aren’t going to stick around because you are looking for a temporary gig”, or for the more permanent position, or “professional”, jobs, 2) “You don’t meet the necessary qualifications.”
After 6 months of constant rejection, time was getting to the Holidays and depression had really sunk in. I felt miserable and useless. I had no clue where I was going to go from there and I began to struggle with how to think about myself. Growing up, and during school, the perception was that everything would have worked out once I had my degree. “Oh, you just need to have that piece of paper to be able to get a job!” but that was a fallacy.
During the Holidays I was able to spend time with family, and friends, and this boosted my morale briefly, but it also gave me time to reflect and I began to look into ways I could support myself if I couldn’t get hired.
I looked into ways that I could continue to do jobs for my family but I also looked into how I could expand on that. Also, during Christmas, I had been given a camera which was something I was ecstatic to get. This seemed like a way for me to use my hobby, learn how to use the camera, and also as a potential opportunity to branch out.
I started to look at starting my WordPress blog and using it as a way to reach out to the internet and as a way to use my hobbies and interests as a way to branch myself out. From there I began to write, and shoot pictures and I quickly threw together some posts and got together some of my recent pictures and began to post.
At this point, I had a few posts out there, added a few Flickr Galleries, and started to share my thoughts. This began to spark my interest in working on this, however, shortly after I started the blog I was contacted about a job application I had recently submitted and I began to interview for the job. After a few rounds of interviewing, I was brought in to my first official post-college job and was quickly thrust into a busy professional life.
Once I started the job, working on the blog really was not in the cards. I have had a strong desire to get this back up-and-running, however, the timing never felt right until now, and here we are.
If you have any interest in learning more about where time has brought me, let me know!
Kevin Douglas's Blog 