For the recession class, the hard
work started after they walked
out of Kenan Stadium in May.
Some doggedly pursue the jobs
they want. Others have entered
some imaginative holding patterns.
by Katherine Evans ’09
James Stenstrom ’09 spent the summer
meeting regularly with his contact at
the career services office, in between
working with two business
school professors on separate
projects and also working
on a venture for a real
estate firm. The best
scenario, he said,
was that one
of those
projects
would be
“somewhat
paid, hopefully.”
Meanwhile, he
moved among three
different friends’ apart-
ments in Chapel Hill, saving
money by sleeping on couches.
As the summer ended, Stenstrom
was reluctant to settle for a job outside
of his preferred field — finance — but he
has many friends who have taken jobs that
weren’t in their preferred industries.
“It’s difficult having to put up with, I guess,
assumed failure until success,” he said.
After graduating with a degree in photojournalism,
Lillie Elliot ’09 says it has been nearly impossible to
find work as a newspaper photographer. So, she’s
spending a year traveling and taking pictures, hoping
she can build a portfolio and return from her travels to
an improved economy.
“I’ve always wanted to travel, and I think I would
have,” she said. “But the recession made my decision to
go now and to go for a year so much easier. I see all
my friends who are just completely freaked out about
getting jobs, and it just makes me so much more confident in my decision.”
Spencer McCormick ’09 interned with Wachovia
and, about the time he should have been trying to par-
lay that into a job, Wachovia went away. “I kind of saw
DreamDeferred
