May, for many of us at FTS, is just another few weeks of work, sprinkled with nice weather and the knowledge that summer (and a usually more relaxed workplace) will be here soon. For many undergraduates, it’s the end of the school year, while for a small population of them…it’s the end of their whole college experience as they know it. To those graduating, while it’s the end of one chapter of your life, it’s the start of another (usually) pretty awesome thing…but until you get the hang of it, post graduate life can be pretty rough when there’s no direction like class schedules or university events.
So this article will be geared towards my extremely-recently-turned-(or about to turn)-post-graduate-forevertwentysometings-men. I’ve seen too many friends fall to the trap of not having a schedule or direction and as a result…they don’t do anything substantial with their lives (at least haven’t yet). Listen I get it, the job market sucks, it’s tough to find a job, blah, blah, blah…we’ve heard it all before…we’re living it right now. But if you’ve recently graduated and you’re on the hunt for a job, there are a few things you can do in the meantime.
“Make looking for a full-time job, like a full-time job.”
This quote (although perhaps overused), is still one of the best one’s that I can imagine for anyone on the hunt. It is way, waaayyyyy too easy to fall into a schedule of waking up late, watching tv, hanging with some friends and not really doing anything productive by the time the day is done. Once you become set in something like this all of a sudden weeks can go by and you’ve missed a lot of opportunities.
While you’re looking for a position (if you don’t have one), you should be doing productive things to fill your day. When you don’t have a job, your job is investing in yourself…that is your full-time job now. So now you need to go ahead and start on that novel you want to write, establish that company, or start that website that you’ve wanted to do. These are things that can show initiative, dedication and perseverance to potential employers or can even be your new job if you’re successful at it!
The point is this, now that you’ve graduated no-one is going to set your life for you. We’re done with class schedules (until grad school perhaps), done with the “typical” path (middle school -> high school -> college) and now we can literally go in any direction we want. It’s both liberating and intimidating at the same time and some people in this world just can’t hack it, make sure that you’re not only able to function in this “new” world you’re thrown in, but that you can succeed in it as well.
Man up, and always be doing something to improve your life now that you’ve graduated…because if you’re not, someone else is.
