Quarter Life Crisis

I am convinced that there is an epidemic of quarter life crises occurring in our country or at least among the people I know. What do I define as a quarter life crisis? Well, I think its 25 to 29 year olds who are getting out of college and graduate school and joining the workforce only to realize that their jobs or lack there of (and in some cases much of their life) falls considerably short of what they though they signed up for. We feel that we were lied to and sold a bill of goods that was inherently damaged. We were all told go to college and then maybe you will be virtually guaranteed a great job. I distinctly remember being told by a college advisor that I could "get a job doing anything" with my undergrad degree in sociology evidently I missed the part where she said "of course that is only if you go to law school, med school or some other graduate school and even then 'anything' might be limited to working at Wendy's or the Gap." Not that there is anything wrong with working at either of those places but I did not spend 7 years of higher education and hundreds of thousands of dollars to say "Would you like to make that a combo" or "Would you like to apply for your Gap card and save an extra 10%"

Lately I have been struggling with the feeling that maybe somewhere along the way I made a horrible mistake that sent me down the wrong life path. Not a bad path, but just one that is not for me. I am thinking that maybe I should have just gone to tech and saved myself the pain of higher education and its woes. And I know that I am not alone! This week I chatted with my aunt (27) about my uncle who is in his late 20s with a masters degree and he is one of the youngest assistant principals in his school district and pretty much their shining star. Currently he is daydreaming of running away from his job and starting up his own lawn mowing or pool cleaning and repair company (in fact I was offered a spot in this new venture). He most likely won't ever do it but just that fact that he fantasizes about walking away from a career that took him 6 years of higher education and about the same in work experience to achieve is disturbing. A few more of my friends each went to college and spent 2 years getting masters only to spend the past few months temping, being unemployed, or working retain at the mall. What the hell is up with that?

What is wrong with this picture? Is it worse for us because we went into our higher education in one of the best job markets for employment seekers and came out in some of the worst? Is it worse for use because of the horrible economy and that we are the first generation predicted to be less financially secure than our parents generation? Some have said that that we are just spoiled and overly sensitive about "paying our dues" and in reality every generation of college/graduate school grads has this crash with reality. Are we really just sitting in our ivory towers and complaining about how high it is? I'm inclined to say no and that we are entering a brand new age that has us facing a brand new set of problems, but if I'm wrong why the hell didn't our parents warn us?