by Priya Banerjee
Editor-in-Chief
art by Eva Sturm-Gross
[originally published June 3, 2022]
This past week, I asked as many seniors as I could get my hands on what their post-grad life looked like. Some gave me silly answers and others gave me earnest ones. So without further ado, here is what a bunch of seniors* responded to the question, “what are you gonna do after graduation?”
*The names of interviewed seniors have been omitted for privacy and for fun
Senior #1: “Ummm… I’m gonna go swimming. I’m gonna drive to all my friends. I’m gonna do what you don’t know how to do yet. I don’t think you guys can know everything I get to do because it’s private. I hope you guys have a good summer too. H.A.G.S.!”
Senior #2: “I’m, um, interning at my dad’s software company.”
Senior #3: “My post-graduate plans are to, um, get famous and eventually return to the mountains of my home.”
Senior #4: “Well, my plan is um. I’m trying to get an internship at Smithsonian Folkways where I’ve interned before. And I’m just gonna live with my parents for a bit and I, uh, once I get to the point where I can do the type of writing I do for The Grape like, freelance, once I can get that type of work consistently, I’ll move out and hopefully live in Baltimore. But, like, my goal is to someday get to a point where I can sit in a room surrounded by my collection of records and CDs and have, like, two cats.”
Senior #5: “I’m going to move to Los Angeles to become a star. I’m going to grind day and night and become a star.”
Senior #6: “I am going to Paris. I am doing a creative writing program at the American University of Paris until the end of July, and then after that I’m either going to WWOOF around or I’m going to go home and work at the Poke store that I worked at last summer.”
Senior #7: “I’m going to go to Boston and work a job.”
Senior #8: “Ummm… I have no idea but I’m going to live with my parents for a little bit, and then I’m going to find a place, and then I’m going to be done living with my parents. And it’s going to be great and I’m going to be making art and finding community and I’m not going to be stressed and all those things are going to be wonderful.”
Senior #9: “I’m going to go home and hang out with my parents and my cats, and then in about three weeks I’m going to move to North Carolina and I’m going to start my Big Girl job at Bank of America.”
Senior #10: “For now, I’m going to go back to New York. I’m going to be with my family for, like, the least amount of time possible. I’m gonna go visit **** in Philly and stay there and sublet their housemate’s room and see if I want to move to Philly. And then I’m going to go to Greece and work on a documentary with ****** and then maybe… Oh! I’m definitely going to learn how to drive because I might move to LA depending… or San Francisco. There’s an audio org in San Francisco that I really like. Ummm… but I need to know how to drive. Or I’ll go abroad! I want to bounce around and kinda feel scenes out until I decide where I want to settle.”
Senior #11: “My plans right now are that if I hear back from this job in New York by Friday, then I’ll move to New York. If I don’t, I’ll move to Chicago. And if I move to Chicago, I’ll work for this gallery called Monique Meloche. If I don’t move to New York that’s what I’ll do.”
Senior #12: “Um, Priya, I’m going to go to New York for the summer and do a little bit of studying there at a place called Hadar in New York, and then come August I’m going to go to Jerusalem and spend a year there. Not in any kind of military capacity, but instead learning Yeshiva in preparation for graduate school.”
Senior #13: “Hang out with dad.”
Senior #14: “Ummm… I’m going to go back home for the summer and I’m going to do a curatorial internship in the American Art department of the Huntington Museum and Gardens.”
Senior #15: “Ummm… I am going to home in New York. And then I’m going to Chicago, moving there, and I’m going to do comedy and theater and maybe work at a daycare to make money.”
Senior #16: “Ummm… to try and get my job at Brandy Melville back, to have a fabulous summer in the city, and to keep in touch with all my friends!”
Senior #17: “I’m planning to fall in love in Roma.”
Senior #18: “Continue my sculpture work in my hometown in Michigan. I have a girl there but I don’t know if she wants me anymore.”
Senior #19: “I’m going to work hard to build up my clothing brand “Mortality” and probably getting into healthy food and running.”
Senior #20: “Uhh. Six figures and 30 mile bike rides every morning.”
Seniors #21: “I am going to go back to New York and live with my parents and become a big music executive.”