Brandon Gets A Job

(No Hometown View on Monday, 8/11/08)

I have always held this belief that graduating from college is not the day you receive your diploma as part of a commencement exercise. I know that’s the day you wear a cap and gown and celebrate the achievement with your family. But if college is supposed to prepare you for the next step in your life than really graduation is when you begin working in the career path you’ve chosen. If I’m correct than my son actually graduated from Penn State on Monday.

That’s because yesterday Brandon started working at Taylor Public Relations, whose New York City office is located in the Empire State Building. For now he will commute by bus like many others do from this area and it will make for rather long days. However I don’t expect that will deter him because Brandon is really motivated to succeed and is working for a company that recently was honored as the 2008 U.S. Agency of the Year.

It’s somewhat ironic that watching your child go off to work on the first day is not all that different than the first day of elementary school, high school or college. At the end of the day as a parent you want to know everything that happened and look at the papers they’ve brought home. Last night though instead of looking at book lists and course assignments we were reviewing his health and dental plan.

The adjustment is a significant one as Brandon had spent most of the past three months working in a part-time summer job which often allowed him to sleep late and not worry about what time he got home at night. Now evenings will find him choosing his clothes for the next day….one which will start around 6am. He will learn to value weekends as a break badly needed and have to adjust to a schedule which does not give you long vacations…that is until you earn them.

I don’t envy today’s young people because of the challenges they face but yesterday I did envy my son as started what we hope will be a successful career. I remember having some of the same feelings he experienced 29 years ago when I started here at the radio station. You just don’t know where the path will take you but I hope he has a great journey.