It’s the end of another year for The Journal.

Thank you one and all for reading this paper week after week. It’s been an exciting year at Saint Mary’s and an exciting year for The Journal. We’ve seen a lot of growth from the paper and had the opportunity to cover some exciting events. Sometimes we haven’t been at our best, but we’ve always tried to give Saint Mary’s University the best paper possible.

A lot of interesting things have happened this year at Saint Mary’s, and we’ve been there to cover the stories, expose the issues, and of course provide you with some entertainment news. From controversies surrounding the recruitment of Mike Danton for our hockey team to the SMUSA election we’ve been there. We’ve also brought you interviews with Premier Darrel Dexter, Cameron Diaz, and others. Now, with this issue, the current volume of the Journal is at an end. But of course, the end of the school year also marks the beginning of a new phase in the lives of university students.

The end of a year is a daunting and stressful time for a student, especially for those of us who are graduating. Not only is this the time of the year when our school workload is the heaviest, but we also have to find a direction for the summer or even for the future in general. One of the biggest things to consider when choosing a future is satisfaction. That may seem obvious, but figuring out what path in our future will actually end up being satisfying can be difficult. Do you start working and save for the future? Take out a loan and go backpacking? Go to graduate school? And, an additional question, where do you go for any of these? Is an unsatisfying but high-paying job that can finance the things you want in your non-work life the way to go? Or should job satisfaction be a priority?

The above questions aren’t rhetorical, but something that should be actively considered. According to Malcolm Gladwell, the Canadian-cum-New Yorker who wrote Outliers, Blink, and some of the New Yorker’s less cartoony bits, there are three factors to obtaining satisfaction in the workplace. I’d argue that these factors are pretty big things to have for obtaining satisfaction in life, too.

According to Gladwell, a satisfying job has the following three elements (at least two out of three, preferably three):

Autonomy: This means that you have a say in what you do every day. At work it means that you are able to self-direct and choose how to do the tasks your job requires. For students specifically, it means making an active choice about what you want to do with your future and not letting others decide for you or being influenced by ideas about what is the “right” thing to do.

Complexity: A self-directed job is nothing if it isn’t stimulating. A lot of shelf stockers are probably pretty self-directed, but the job isn’t exactly intellectual gymnastics. Mental stimulation is important to a satisfying job. As students, we have to consider whether the next steps in our life will provide that important mental charge. Is going straight into grad school a great idea if you’re already finding your Bachelor’s degree to feel like “same-old, same-old”?

Connection between Effort and Reward: If you work hard, you want to get something out of it. This can be as simple as working extra hours for extra pay, or as involved as getting a good-paying job because of those three languages you took the time to learn. Of course, it doesn’t have to be pay that counts as a reward. That trip around the world may not pay you anything, but it may prove an unforgettable experience that informs the rest of your life. At the end of your summer, or when choosing your future, what will you get out of your efforts?

Hopefully the above criteria can be helpful to those of you who are still working on what to do with their futures. Studies have shown that going after the immediate reward rather than looking far into the future can be a great choice too, so things like taking that backpacking trip or doing an internship at a magazine could be a great choice. I still don’t know what I want to do with my next year, but I know that I’ll choose to do something satisfying. Working at The Journal has been an immensely rewarding experience that has fulfilled all three criteria for a satisfying job experience, and my experience at SMU has been as well.

You know what might be a satisfying decision for you next year? Working at The Journal! We’re hiring for every position, including mine (so many unused business cards...), so if you feel like getting paid to write and edit next year submit your resume, cover letter, and two writing samples to: thesmujournal@gmail.com. Put the words “letter from editor” in the subject line to let me know that you read this article (and therefore, that you actually read the paper.)

Thanks for reading!

Also... Morning Xena.