Regardless of your situation, and no matter how scary it might seem, finding your first job post-college is one of the most important things you should do in your final year. Even if you just take out one day a week, every week, to apply for positions, it will be better than waiting until you graduate. Building relationships and showing interest to employers early could potentially lead to extensive dialogue in which you give them updates on how your senior year is going. If they see you’re on the right track for graduation, and the company has positions open, a job offer could be awaiting you when you’re done.

Although it seems like trying to find a job and getting your foot in the door toward your career goal is too overwhelming while still trying to finish school, don’t you think sitting at home for months or years trying to find a job after graduating is even more overwhelming? I certainly would think so.

It’s not a good idea to not have a steady income when it comes time to paying back those loans. I know my parents wouldn’t be happy with me sitting on the couch when they come home from work after they just spent their hard-earned money on me to get an education.

With all of the resources and connections that universities have at their disposal, it would be almost foolish not to look for a job during your last two semesters on campus.

Job fairs are in abundance, company representatives are always lingering into classes and looking for interns and professors almost always know someone who could at least get you an opportunity to get an interview somewhere. With these resources and a little bit of persistence there is no way you shouldn’t be steered in the right direction, at the least, and from there you never know what could happen.

Networking is another way to go about finding possible job positions once exiting college.

I would hope most seniors have an idea of where they want their careers to end up by the start of their fourth year, so joining a club or a group that involves your intended career path could be very helpful for not only finding a job, but adding to your r é sum é before you graduate.

In all honesty, many times in life, it’s all about meeting the right person. For example, joining a law club could lead to you meeting a new friend whose father is the owner of a law firm and he’s looking for aspiring lawyers to intern for him. That’s not a farfetched scenario.

It’s amazing the opportunities that arise when you apply yourself, and it’s even more amazing when you are successful just because you wanted to better yourself.

Even if you exhaust all of your options through the university and still find yourself without a job offer, another good option is to send your résumé around to different companies across the country that fit the type of job you’re looking for. This option could be very helpful because it potentially could lead to relationships with companies that aren’t in the radius of your university and don’t necessarily network with schools at a further distance.

Also, if you send your résumé to five companies per day for the whole first semester of your senior year then you will have hundreds of r é sum é s floating around without even having to get off your couch.

Whichever route you decided to take to find, or not find, a job after college, just make sure that you apply yourself and do whatever you can to put yourself in the best position for success.

It’s easy to blow off your senior year and hang out with all of your friends before you all go your separate ways and it’s even easier to run away from reality until you absolutely have to face it, but it will be the most beneficial to you if you’re able to set yourself up with a job right when you receive your diploma.

MSU is here for you and it wants you to utilize every opportunity it presents because it wants you to succeed more outside of its walls than it did while you were attending its school.

Go send out that résumé, go to every job fair and go talk to university faculty because you never know where it may lead you.

After all you’ve been able to do on your own for the past three years, you don’t want to end up in your parent’s basement again, right? Exactly.

And with that being said, I’m going to go be lazy until September comes.

James Edwards III is a guest columnist at The State News and a journalism senior. Reach him at edwar443@msu.edu.