The Barometer Online

As a part of the o.b.U Indie Days tour of colleges around the country, Alexandra Robbins, author and journalist, spoke to students about entering a career after college.

"I fear I may have just depressed people about their twenties, but I didn't mean to," Robbins said after her presentation Monday.

Robbins came and spoke about the "quarterlife crisis" that many students experience when they leave the college environment to pursue careers, a period often filled with questions and self-doubt.

"After you leave the school environment, there's no road map anymore," Robbins said. Basically twenty-something life isn't "Friends" or "The Real World."

The idea of the "quarterlife crisis" came to Robbins because she experienced it firsthand. As a junior in college she found herself at a loss as to what she wanted to do with her life. After graduating, she accepted the first job offer that came along, only to regret it.

"I hated the work, it meant nothing to me."

Robbins pointed out that the crisis is common to many young adults at this time in their lives.

"We are told our twenties should be all fun and laughter, so you feel like having uncertainties and doubts mean something is wrong with you," she said. "I wanted to let people know the feelings they are experiencing are common."

Robbins believes the crisis is happening to so many young people because "there are more college graduates now than at any other point in history."

Robbins urged students to take the time to discover what they are truly passionate about, then build a career around that.

She advised using a different method than traditional career placement tests: "My test in the 8th grade said I should be an air conditioner repairman, and that hasn't worked out for me yet," she said.

Robbins got her start as a journalist through her own persistence, cold-calling editors with her story ideas until they were accepted.

Since then, she has gone on to write two books, "Quarterlife Crisis" and "Secrets of the Tomb," an expose of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale. Her third book, due out in April, investigates college sororities.

Robbins invites students to contact her and share their stories about the quarterlife crisis, or their experiences in a sorority, at her website: alexandrarobbins.com.

Brenna Doheny covers campus news for The Daily Barometer. She can be reached at baro.campus@studentmedia.orst.edu