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First-generation grad finds underemployment BA degree qualifies son to fold jeans, delude self about future by Chanice Jan, Associate Editor
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 | Item of the Week: Fashionably Torn Dreams
starting at $7,000/year. |
AUSTIN — Nathan Hamilton, the first in his family to graduate from college, recently announced that he had accepted a job as a senior cashier at Old Navy, a position for which either his GED-holding parents or a trained gibbon monkey could have qualified.
Hamilton graduated from the University with a degree in English. His family was present for commencement ceremonies at Gregory Gym, an event that was almost as big as the debt his parents accrued to pay for an education with no real-world value.
"I'm so proud of Nathan," said Lynn Hamilton, Nathan's mother. "Even though his father and I had to sell our car to finance his senior year, it was all worth it to make sure he learned about Victorian poetry, American Realism and Dostoevsky's major works. All that knowledge will surely help him cope with the fact that he wasted four years of our lives in order to count change."
Hamilton's father, Robert, agrees.
"If I had known that my son would end up with such a bright future, I wouldn't have sobbed uncontrollably in the shower every morning before getting on a crowded, mildew-ridden bus at 5 a.m. to go to my second job."
Hamilton said he attended college to earn a degree and build a career instead of working at a dead-end job like the ones his parents had.
"I saw how hard Mom and Dad struggled — they absolutely hated their jobs. But they didn't have the education to get better ones," he said. "I didn't want that to be me. I wanted to make something of myself, which is why I decided to study the subtleties of metonymy, litotes, and leitmotifs."
Hamilton sees his current job as a stepping stone to greater things. "I'm just trying to work my way up, like my theater-major friend Gerard, who's a cook at Wendy's when he's not city-hopping to look for American Idol auditions."
Hamilton's short-term goal is to break into a profession that doesn't involve whoring out smiles in hopes customers will sign up for an Old Navy card. He remains optimistic that one day he might actually use his hard-earned college education.
"Even though I'm working alongside high school kids who have never heard of James Joyce and don't know how it feels to desperately cling to idealistic dreams in the face of grim reality, I won't be discouraged." explained Hamilton as he frantically shoved quarters into a Scratch-and-Win ticket vending machine.
"This is just a temporary gig," he insisted as emphatically as his violently quivering chin would allow him to. |
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