What Life After College Is Really Like

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It’s once again time for many of you to don an overpriced cap and gown to make yourfinal journey across campus. You’ll find yourselves overwhelmed with feelings ofsadness, uncertainty and probably a hangover. After a lengthy and cliché-ladenspeech from a well-paid dignitary and/or celebrity about how there are no limits to yoursuccess, an administrator you’ve never met before will hand you a $100,000 sheet ofpaper that certifies you as an adult. In theory, anyway. In practice it’s not assimple as that. As someone who’s less a recent graduate and living more in“dude, why are you still attending events for recent graduates?”territory, I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring and address some of the concernsyou probably didn’t know you had. A lot of you will have a joblined up. Those of you who don’t will be amazed at how easy it is to fall out oftouch and allow friends to expire when all they talk about is work. Once you land a jobof your own, you’ll turn into exactly that which you so despised, because itturns out having a real grown-up’s paycheck is actually pretty sweet. On the job, alot of writers and commentators will malign you as the most entitled, over-educated yetuninformed class yet. They’re only half right. They will ridicule and criticize yourseeming lack of foundational knowledge, not realizing that the joke’s on thembecause who needs knowledge when you have Google? In turn, you’ll validate theirargument by believing and even expressing your belief that you’re above entry-levelwork and that you really ought to be doing something more meaningful. In a few instancesyou may even be right, but unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be) thecorporate world has yet to figure out how to develop employees when 20 years ofspecialized work experience can now be summarized in a Wikipedia article.You’ll feel jealous of your friends who were either smart or hardworking enough toland themselves a high-profile, high-payingjob. If you’re one of those people, you’ll soon feel jealous of yourslacker friends’ 40-hour weeks and ample vacation time. Speaking of smart andhardworking, you’ll learn that most people are neither and very few are both.College was a place where everyone around you was more or less on the same plane, and onceyou enter the corporate world you realize that there aren’t enough ditch-diggingjobs available for the people you saw as your academic inferiors. You may question why youbothered to put in the work to go to a good, expensive school when Greg in sales seems tohave found his diploma in a box of Cracker Jack. Sadly, it remains a valid question yearslater. You’ll find yourself appalled at the cumulative costs of basic necessityitems like toilet paper and toothpaste. Even the most bleeding-heart liberal among youwill see the appeal of conservativism when you see what Uncle Sam does to your firstpaycheck. Rents will be high, commutes will be long and most sobering of all is therealization that this is endless. There is no summer vacation or graduation, just thedaily grind. Continue Reading

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