My name is Craig and here is my journey.
In May of 2009 I graduated college with a BA in Finance from Tennessee Wesleyan College. It was a small school that I believe caters to around 3k students. This was supposed to be the best part of my life, our lives.The time where we become fully independent and start our careers as do all graduates wish to do. Unfortunately for myself and many others, The Great Recession was in full effect. This left us with a myriad of debt, piss poor job market and the realization that we will at least be five years behind in our career goals compared to any previous graduating class.
Naive at the time of graduation, I thought this would not have a major effect on me as I was getting my degree in a business study which showed that I had quantitative abilities as well (I'm fucking smart, bro.). I was 23 when I graduated and was 24 when I started my first 'big boy' job at a credit card processor for businesses evaluating fraud and risk to ensure the least amount of loss was taken to the company. This job did not compensate much but it was the best opportunity to get my foot in the door and transfer to a finance related position. I started this job in March of 2010 after being offered in Dec of 2009. I also started this job with a drinking habit that I had formed during the unemployment phase. This 'habit', for lack of a better term, ended up cause a plethora of issues both financially and emotional that are still going on as I type this out.
The drinking became worse and around May 2010 I made the worst decision as far as relationships go, I dated a stripper. It gets a lot better.
