Well, here it is. My last year here at Penn State. Everything should be fabulous -- I'm finished with all the classes for my major, I'm graduating on time -- life should be a bowl of cherries, right? Well, it's not. And I know life ain't so peachy for a lot of my fellow graduates-to-be either. We're all tormented by the seven little words that fly out of every single person's mouth once they find out you're graduating soon: "So. Do you have a job yet?"

No! I do not have a job! As a matter of fact, at the rate I'm going, I'll probably never get one, either! That's right, I'm going to be living with my parents for the rest of my life. But hey, look on the bright side -- I'll probably be able to fulfill my life's ambition of becoming a manicurist.

Pardon me. Didn't mean to lose my composure. But honestly, this job search thing is probably one of the most stressful experiences life will ever throw your way.

First of all, you've got to get your resume together. Now, if you are a person of some intelligence and foresight, you take English 202 midway through your career at Penn State so you can get a jump on composing resumes and cover letters. The basic trick to these little documents is creatively wording everything in order to make your ridiculously small amount of experience seem a lot more impressive than it actually is. Believe me, there is a fine line between creatively wording and flat-out lying.

Unfortunately, if you are a bonehead like myself, you put off learning this valuable information until your eighth semester. This means you spend the entire time kicking yourself for procrastinating, not to mention hating all the juniors who are snaking your job opportunities because they're old pros at the resume scene while you just learned the proper format for a business letter.

Once you've finally got the resume in full effect, yet another problem crops up: What do you do with them? I mean, yeah, you're supposed to send them to companies you want to work for and all, but uhhh, how exactly do you get those addresses? This is especially challenging for those people like myself who don't exactly have the recruiters knocking the door down.

Eventually it dawns on you that you better get yourself in gear and find out exactly where to send your stuff, so you ask someone who looks organized how he or she got this prized information. When this person informs you that there are about a million resources available to get these addresses from -- books in the references room at Pattee, phone books, advising centers -- you pretend like you knew all along, but uh, you were just, uh, double checking to see if you missed anything. Then you make a mad dash to the Career Development and Placement Center in Boucke Building for some help.

After you get over these initial hurdles, there are plenty more waiting for you. For example, after you bust out and spring for some snazzy off-white paper and matching envelopes to print on, you can't figure out how the hell to run those fabulous envelopes through a laser printer. Or, after you get all 100 of your resumes printed, you realize you've spelled your first name wrong on every single copy. If anything can go wrong, it will.

What's more, you've got everyone and his uncle telling you to network, network, network. As if you have the opportunity to just jet set about the country hobnobbing with the presidents and C.E.O.'s of all the Fortune 500 companies. The only people I have to network with are these ridiculous people my dad suggests every time I call home. Here's a sample call:

My dad snatches the phone from my mom, anxious to enlighten me with his latest stroke of employment search brilliance. "Mikey, I've got someone else you've just got to send a resume to," he says breathlessly. I can hear my mom laughing in the background. Oh, God. Not another one. "Who, dad" I answer. "Your sixth grade teacher's husband" After I pick the receiver back up off the floor, I say, "But dad, he owns a cash register company. I want to write." "Doesn't matter," he assures me. "The man's got connections." Thank you, father, for this great career counseling!

Once you finally overcome the initial trauma of sending resumes and cover letters to everyone on the planet, you have to sit and wait for the responses. Every day you run to the mailbox, wondering if today will be the day you learn your fate. More than likely, however, you'll just learn that "You've Just Won 10 Million Dollars" or that you owe your compact disc club some money.

I'm hoping one of these days the mailman will deliver me something a little more exciting and eventful -- a job offer would be nice, but hey, I'm not picky. I'd settle for an interview somewhere -- even with one of my dad's master connections like the cash register guy.