The big day is nearly upon you: the gown has been rented, the family has been invited, and you’re using every method in your arsenal to avoid answering the question, “what next?”
After 17 years of education, it’s finally time to make your own way – and, understandably, it’s freaking you the fuck out. Don’t worry though, it’s not as scary as it seems:
1. You have all the time in the world.
No one expects you to make a final decision on what you want to be and where you want to go the moment you graduate. You still have a bunch of time to try out something new, fuck up, try something else, fail, and redefine your goals. No one gets it right on the first go, and the sooner you realize that, the easier it will become.
2. The “real world” is what you make of it.
If you want to spend Wednesday afternoons eating Cookie Crisp and building a blanket fort: nobody’s stopping you. If you wish to work 9-5 in an office in the city: go nuts. If your dream is to bum around Asia, teaching English to kids on a beach: the world’s your oyster. You create whatever “real” world you want to create; the only confines are your own perceived limitations, so stop perceiving them.
3. GPA’s mean sweet fuck-all.
Despite the many hours you’ve spent trying to push that average up, the long and short of it is: following your first job, no one will care about your GPA. In fact, for the vast majority of people, it won’t matter the week following graduation. Employees want to know if you graduated, what experience you have, and how you’ll fit into the working environment. So if you’re agonizing over your final score – don’t. No one gives a fuck.
4. Your first job isn’t your last job.
Don’t worry if the first job you get out of college isn’t your dream job. No one lands their dream job following graduation and all those that claim they have, are either incredibly optimistic, or lying. Your first job, your second job, and your tenth job are going to teach you what you really want to do, and the more you learn, the easier it will be to eventually transition to that position.
5. True freedom is daunting.
Having your entire life in your hands with the freedom to shape and define it, is scary. You have a lump of unshaped clay in front of you with endless possibilities of what it will eventually become. The more you poke, prod and test the material, the more defined it becomes, and slowly the direction begins to reveal itself. So, go and test and prod and poke, and soon the pathway you should take will become clear.
6. You will always have friends.
You may be scared that once you leave the confines of college – with its group activities, shared classes and reliable structure – there will be no way to make new connections you have made in the past. Bullshit. You will continue to forge friendships until your final days. It wasn’t school that forced you to socialize, it was you – and it always will be.
7. You’re going to have way more free time.
The best thing about the “real world” is that when your job is done for the day, it’s actually done for the day. This affords a great deal of time to partake in a lot of other activities, like getting drunk, playing kickball, getting drunk, learning to bake, getting drunk, exploring, and getting drunk.
