Outstanding student debt across the United States has reached $1.2 trillion according to Forbes, and is increasing at a faster rate than mortgages and auto loans. Seventy-one percent of 2013 college graduates had student loan debt, with an average of $29,400 per borrower, and more than half of Californians have student debt with an average of $20,000, according to data compiled by the Institute for College Access and Success.

How you deal with that challenging situation is the key factor that employers try to control when accepting new interns. In an interview for an internship, your well-written resume and sterling GPA might not count as much as your personal skills. Employers know that internship jobs are not the glamorous job you were probably expecting to land. They also know that it takes character to not respond negatively when someone asks you to make 200 hundred copies of a booklet then realizes they gave you the wrong document only after you have completed the task.

The United States Labor Department reported that the Black unemployment rate dropped from 15.8 to 13.6 percent in January, the lowest unemployment rate for African- Americans in almost three years. The report sent a hopeful sign that unemployment among Black men declined from 15.7 to 12.7 percent. Similarly, the unemployment rate for Black women dropped from 13.9 to 12.6 percent.

Thanks to two economic recessions (2000, 2008), two company restructures, and a terrorist attack, I’ve been unemployed a total of four times, for a total of nearly six years.  Want to know the mental state of the unemployed? Let me be your guide though this particularly pot-holed landscape…