Two Paths, One Outcome: The Transition from Student to Worker

Vanessa Fernandez is a former California State University, Northridge (CSUN) student who graduated in May 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. She chose to attend CSUN because it was close to her home and she had heard many good things about the school. 

For Fernandez, life after graduation has been great for her because she was able to take advantage of the internship opportunities that came her way. Although she wasn’t able to get into all the internships she had applied for, she was thankful for the experience that she gained throughout the entire process.

“After I graduated, I was able to get a full-time job. So I was lucky in that timeline I had. But I went through many interviews and I think that was pretty difficult. I think just the field that I’m in is very competitive because everyone wants jobs. I just had to make myself stand out in these interviews,” said Fernandez.

Fernandez was worry-free after college because she no longer needed to study for exams or do homework and was able to focus on herself and her craft of work as a civil engineer.

“It was really everything that I wanted and the title that I wanted. I would say that everything after college has been really fun and what I’ve dreamed of,” said Fernandez. “It’s just that sometimes I do miss school, like the environment of being around other students. But I do see that I have more time to myself now,” said Fernandez.

The shift from college to adulthood for Fernandez was a bit difficult for her because at times, she still thought of herself as a college student. She wanted to work on being more professional, especially around her work colleagues.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m still a student and that I’m still kind of an intern when really I need to start taking more initiative. Because I am handling projects on my own now. I feel like I need to take matters into my own hands. I think navigating through that is really hard, but not impossible,” said Fernandez.

She works at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT). Her daily tasks as a civil engineer are different every day. She does a lot of different requests for her clients and requesters.  

At her workplace, they handle valet requests. When assigned to that task, she processes the application to see if it’s feasible to install a valet zone and where they want it to be installed.

The same process goes for other installations such as red and green curbs for short-term parking. She explained how sometimes she would have to send them an invoice if requestors want to use parking meters for a certain amount of time, and how they have to pay for the revenue that LADOT is losing.

“I also send petitions if requestors want to change any parking restrictions on the street. For example, if they want a yellow curb or a commercial loading zone, there has to be a petition where other people on that street agree to get that installed,” said Fernandez.

For Fernandez to keep the job that she currently has now, she had to take a licensing exam. It was not easy for her, but after three tries, she finally succeeded.

Now that she has passed her first license exam, she plans to get her professional license sometime in the future once she has at least two years of work/design experience.

“I plan to get my professional license, which is an even longer exam, but that’s okay because it’s what’s gonna help me get promoted to possible management positions in the future,” said Fernandez. 

In terms of student debt, Fernandez didn’t really deal with struggling to pay for her tuition because FAFSA was able to cover those expenses. 

However, that isn’t the case for every student. 

According to How Many People Have Student Loan Debt, “Just over 19 million borrowers had student debt between $10,000-$40,000 in 2022. This group made up about 42% of all student loan borrowers.” 

Unfortunately, Rhea Garcia is part of that 42 percent.

Garcia is a former college student at West Coast University (WCU) in Los Angeles and graduated in Nov. 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She attended Pierce Community College and transferred after two years to West Coast University. The small private institution has a main focus on healthcare majors. After graduating from WCU, she is currently working as a caretaker in Alhambra. She has moved out of her family’s house and into an apartment by herself.

Similar to Fernandez, life after graduation has been pretty good for Garcia. She has more freedom and is experiencing what it’s really like to live as an adult.

“All I’m really doing right now is trying to pass my license boarding exam for nursing, just so that I can start working at the hospital,” said Garcia. “I feel like I’m more free and able to do whatever I want and not have to worry about deadlines and assignments or quizzes.”

At first, the thought of adulthood seemed scary for Garcia. But she didn’t lose sight of what had to be done to secure her future and make her family proud. 

“I feel like anticipating adulthood was scary to me, but during the moment of transition, it felt almost normal to me because I was living in the moment,” said Garcia. “Looking back on the time that I graduated, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.” 

During her time in community college, Garcia’s first part-time job was at a Filipino bakeshop called Red Ribbon. This job gave her a sense of what adulthood was like because she was able to make money while going to school. 

She was able to meet a lot of part-time co-workers that were college students as well as shared the same major as her. Garcia was very thankful for her experience at Red Ribbon and was ready to move on to better things that will help her within her career path.

It was easy for Garcia to get a job after she graduated college because there were job listings that were available in the career center at her school. 

“The job that I currently have now is a home care aide and it is a type of caregiver. I usually work from Sunday at 10 am to Tuesday at 10 am, which is an ongoing 47-hour shift. I also work on Wednesdays from 9 am-5 pm,” said Garcia.

As a college graduate, she has shown interest in pursuing her Master’s degree sometime in the future, around her late 20s.

In Garcia’s career so far, she has accomplished graduating and getting her bachelor’s degree. Now she wants to focus on getting her license in order for her to start working at a hospital as a labor and delivery nurse.

As for student debt, Garcia didn’t have to deal with it during her time at Pierce. But once she had transferred to WCU, she had to take out a loan during her first year there.

“I am still currently trying to pay it off. And for my last year at WCU, my mom and older brother were helping me make monthly payments to pay off my last year of tuition,” Garcia said. “I’m slowly still paying off my loan.”

CSUN gave Fernandez various opportunities in careers to explore before ultimately choosing to be an engineer, as for Garcia, she always knew that she wanted to become a nurse and she went to community college to complete her G.E. classes for much cheaper. 

Besides academics, Fernandez became involved in CSUN clubs during her time there. She was in the CSUN Filipino American Student Association (FASA) and FASA Modern which was a dance club she competed in. For Garcia, she was more focused on getting through community college and she made friends once she transferred to WCU. 

Even though Garcia knew that WCU was an expensive private school and despite her receiving money from FAFSA, it just wasn’t enough, she still had to take out loans per semester. Fernandez, on the other hand, didn’t have to deal with student debt because her FAFSA was able to cover the cost.

They both took advantage of their school’s resources to make the transition from student life to graduate life easier. They also found internships/job opportunities related to their field of study which helped them get to their respective careers today.

Although both Garcia and Fernandez have experienced different college experiences, they both recommend going to college because they had better job opportunities and they were able to provide not only for themselves, but for their families.