Having a job is great, I have learned. It means I can afford things such as a place to live and daily meals. And with an above-average job, I can afford a car and occasional overseas vacations.

However, I also understand how difficult it is to have a below-average job, having had many of them before. It’s frankly pretty awful. Owning a car was out of the question – I could barely afford to ride the subway.

So, I decided to go to university and get a degree.

Later, I emailed my details to every company and government institution with an online careers page. I even printed my resume and handed it out in what seemed like hundreds of office buildings.

One summer during university, my cousin and I helped out at my uncle’s business, fixing roofs, although the only thing I got out of that was back problems.

That same year, I got a job at a plumbing(管道工程) company, which I was terrible at. It was no surprise when I was asked to leave that job after only four days.

A lot of people today believe the problem of unemployment in my generation is our fault. Some accuse us of being lazy or feeling too entitled(有资格的). At the same time, some people accuse members of my generation of having a sense of “specialness” that has led us to believe we can all be astronauts, movie stars or singers if we put our minds to it. Also, a few of them think that we would all be happily employed if we would only learn trades or become software engineers, because those people make the most money.

I realize that not everyone can go into space, star in Hollywood movies or fill stadiums with fans, however. I also think not everyone can make a good electrician or design advanced computer software – I know I can’t. Everyone is good at something, but no one is good at everything. It took me hundreds of rejection emails to realize that I had to focus on finding a job where I could actually be successful.

And now, I finally have that job. All it took was several years of desperation, failure and an honest assessment(评估) of my personal value in the job market.

It’s not the best start, but it’s not bad for a start too.

In the 1950s, when I was young, I lived in Houston, Texas. As I grew up, the city grew up. To me, the most exciting changes were that one big building after another went up.

I think that’s what made me want to be an architect, and I wanted to take part in building one. In high school, I took a class called drafting(绘图). There I learned how to use many different tools to draw plans for building things. I was the only girl in the class, and others laughed at me. But I knew what I wanted to do, so I didn’t mind the jokes.

When I was 16, I found my first summer job with an engineering company. I worked in the drafting room with 60 men on one of the biggest engineering projects of our century—the Trans-Alaska Pipeline(管道). That pipeline now carries oil south across Alaska, from oil wells near the Arctic Ocean down to the Pacific. That summer I learned a lot about how a huge structure is designed and what it’s like to work in a team. One of my bosses from that summer said he knew that was the secret of my success.

The engineers liked my work so much that they asked me to come back. I worked there for the next five summers. During those years, I studied architecture at the University of Texas. I discovered that the best way to learn about architecture is to look at the world around me. To remember what I saw, I always carried a notebook with me so I could make quick drawings.

After I graduated from college, I made my dream come true.