Reader's Ink discussion

How did Commencement reflect your own 18-to-25-year-old years? Was Sullivan's depiction of the girls' friendship realistic to you? And for those of you (us) who graduated from college in the early 2000s, do you agree that with one reviewer's comment that our generation of women face TOO MUCH choice?

Many years ago after starting my working career after college, I started in what would be determined as a fairly prestigious employer that would be considered a prestigious company after having been to school. I worked for a construction company for about 1 1/2 years then transferred to this wonderful company. The economy was VERY VERY difficult on a lot of us, and after working there 7 1/2 years they laid 700 people off on the same day, so one gets to totally re-evaluate who I am, what do I do, what will I do. Very crucial time in my life. Took a while to find work, and the next company I worked for, worked for 15 1/2 years. Had a lot of illnesses, cancer, surgeries, etc, and because a company could be sued if they let you go for health reasons, they kept looking for reasons they could let me go. So I've now been away from them for 10+ years, and that is hard. I've done short jobs since then, but nothing full time. My health has precluded working full time. I miss it so much, but realistically am not able to work a full day any more. I'm insanely jealous of you ladies that have your full days and learning and doing all the exciting stuff you do. You are probably sick of all the questions I ask, but I truly am interested in your generation and what I can learn from you!!! Realizing I've been away for a long time, I would agree that today's women face too many choices. I've had a real aging the last couple days, realizing how old I really am. I graduated from college in 1979. Probably before most of you were born. UGH!

Um, my group of college friends was loads more interesting than this bunch.

But here's what bugged me: not a single one of my college friends is doing what they thought they'd do their first year of college (correct me if I'm wrong, Ash). Sure, there are parts of those original dreams in what they do now, but all of us ended up in places either slightly or entirely different than where we planned.

And the funny thing is? We all seemed to end up in the perfect place for us (or are in the process of getting there). The girl who was planning to go into patent law after majoring in science ended up getting a PhD in science and works as a business consultant. The feminist ended up as the suburban mom, complete with taking her husband's name (not that either of those things make someone less of a feminist, just that she's the one who ended up with the most "traditional" lifestyle). The girl with the undecided major who ended up in politics while vowing to never, ever be an attorney has a law degree.

None of the characters in Commencement moved from what they thought they wanted at 18 and where they were at 26. Sally veered close to that, but there wasn't enough about why she wanted to be a doctor to make an impact on me.

Even Bree, although she "changed teams," still seemed unable to not be in a relationship.

I do think there's something about having too many choices that it can be overwhelming. But I never saw that in this book because none of them shifted from what they wanted to do or asked "what else is out there?"

That's an interesting perspective, Lauren. And not just because I show up in paragraph 3.

I wonder if part of the lack of shifts is due to the fact Sullivan wrote this while still quite young (right?).

She was young, but even when we were mid-20s, all of us had scattered in different directions (heck, that started our senior year).

I do wish we had seen more into the "too many choices" paradigm. I've been thinking about it a lot, and there's truth to it. My own life and my jumping between different career options attests to that. It's hard because being able to make a choice out of infinite options requires really knowing who you are, and I don't think many people know that at 20 or 22.