GEARING up for the workforce is a bittersweet sensation for any young adult.
After years of academic hothousing and competing for a coveted degree, picking from the current smorgasbord of opportunities comes with some sense of grief.
Okay, so you have fantastic grades which qualify you for an entry-level position - just slightly above that of an intern, but still at the bottom of the corporate food chain - but it seems the battle has only begun.
What awaits us is a matter of clocking overtime, spending weekends in the office to prove our commitment, in a job that we picked not because we were driven by passion, but because it made practical, financial sense.
The truth is, everybody is ordinary with a degree, and employers now want to hire those with street smarts as well as book smarts.
So in the heat of competition for decent jobs with sufficient dough, I float along, contending with the reality that I am a product of local education.
Events this year, after all, have made this consideration acute.
A rise in the retirement age, hikes in the Goods and Services Tax, transport fares and property prices - they all remind us that Singaporeans can no longer solely rely on their Central Provident Fund savings for their twilight years.
The competition is really for the best-paying jobs, interests be damned.
Of course there are those who have the luxury of counting down the days to the start of their exchange programmes overseas.
But for most of us, trying to chalk up sought-after experience is the way to ensure brighter prospects. Nonetheless, we can consider new career paths.
Science and research development units here continue to expand. Then, there is the grand openings of the integrated resorts drawing nearer, which promise employment in a burgeoning hospitality sector.
That is, if we can first beat the competition among our peers as well as foreign talents. Any flourishing industry could still one day become saturated, or face competition from the rest of the region.
Even so, there are no long-term guarantees and job security sounds like a myth.
Years of history lessons are filled with stories of how workers struggle endlessly to meet the demands of day-to-day operations, only to risk unemployment when an industry sinks.
And when you count time away from family, personal development or just much-needed downtime, will all that we have done be worth the remuneration? Or will it amount to no more than an elaborate office pantry and the occasional Bring-Your-Child-To-Work-Day?
Whatever happened to reasonable working hours?
If things are not looking that bright for tertiary-educated graduates, I can only imagine how tough it is for those who lack academic credentials.
Not only must they compete with ostensibly better-qualified peers, they must also prove their worth against lower-costing counterparts from foreign lands.
Losing out on a job in your own country - in a boom-time economy, no less - could not taste any more bitter.
All this complexity over what career to pursue makes me wish someone might have instead prepared me for the flourishing arts and music scene here.
Maybe then my fantasy of being a back-up singer for the award-winning trio The Dixie Chicks would not have sent my parents reeling in shock.
What I do know is this: I am tired, and I have not even begun.
People I know have their paths all mapped out, right down to the exact job description and number of years they intend to work before reaching middle management.
I only know what I do not want to do: Bean counting. I attended a corporate conference in New York, engaged in regular volunteerism and, of course, I attempted weekly to demonstrate some journalistic prowess in these pages.
Through them, I already feel I have accomplished much more this year than the previous two combined.
But will these count for anything more when it comes time for that all-important job interview?
It does not matter, I guess.
As long as I am looking for a place in the Singapore job market, I am likely to carry on wondering if my place in the workforce is justifiable given my qualifications.
I am likely to continue to place the practical above passion. I am likely to map out a better route to a comfortable retirement.
Only time will tell.
The writer, Alicia Ng, 23, is a final-year accounting student at the Singapore Management University
