They say time flies when you’re having fun, and this past year has been filled with crazy ups and downs. It’s been a little over a year since I graduated from ASU, and I wanted to reflect on the past year as I navigate through adulthood and try to find myself – queue Eat, Pray, Love. Here’s a recap of what I learned one year after graduating.

Graduating in 2020 was honestly a blessing for me and not having a graduation ceremony relieved a lot of pressure. I know a lot of my friends were really upset not having a ceremony for their accomplishment, which I totally understand, but walking in graduation was not something I really wanted in the first place.

Weeks leading up to my graduation, people asked if I was nervous about post-grad life, and truth be told, it wasn’t anything different than what I’d been doing. I threw myself into work a lot during college because that’s all I knew. I never really went out to parties or clubs. It was deadlines and due dates. I never really experienced the full college experience. Although I did join greek life and was part of a sorority, I did leave after my first year.

Do I regret not having that typical college student life experience? Not really, because I did enjoy those years!

One-Year Post-Graduation

Now that it has been one year since graduating, here’s a recap of what I’ve learned post-college!

Having a Routine After College

I have a love-and-hate relationship with routine. Having a routine is great but having a really structured one is not. I never really understood why, in K-12, we had classes from 8 am until 4 pm, then once you go off to college, you have this luxury of picking your own schedule.

Most of my classes in college were on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I worked on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I loved having classes in the afternoon versus classes in the morning. The flexibility of picking out your own schedule appealed me to throughout college. I find it entirely backward that once you graduate, the total norm of adulthood is living that structured routine life of Monday through Friday from 8 am to 5 pm again.

While I love the company I work at, I still don’t completely understand why it’s structured like that. I feel like I got a little glimpse of living in my own fantasy during college.

Making Friends Post-College

I’ve always heard people say that making friends after college is hard. I can see some truth to that – you’re not exposed to as many people as you are throughout college. However, I don’t think making friends after college was any different since I barely had the typical college life.

I found most of my friends through random bits of my life – some through workout classes, some through going to events, and some through mutual friends. If you’re having trouble making friends after college, try striking up a conversation with someone behind you at a coffee shop when you’re in line. You can also attend networking events, and make friends with your hairstylist or esthetician!

With social media, we’re all so connected, yet disconnected at the same time.

Friendships will Change As You Become An Adult

Thinking about how friendships change was a bit hard for me. Several of my friends from college moved for their new job, graduate school, or were just looking for a change. I try my best to keep in touch with as many of them as I can, but we all get caught up in our daily life of work, family, and other things.

As I get older, I find that I prioritize friends and family above work and other aspects of my life. This might be because I prioritized work so much during my last two years of college that all I did was eat, sleep, work, and repeat. Now, I crave moments with my friends and family.

There’s Never a Perfect Timing

There is never really a perfect time for anything. I learned this lesson as I was trying to figure out my career. After graduating college, I accepted a marketing position at a law firm. After a month, their subdivision consulting firm became its own entity and took me with them.

I went from working with 10+ people to a team of 3 people. I quickly realized what I liked and what I didn’t like. Throughout college, I thought I loved working at a start-up. While I’m a very entrepreneurial person, I quickly realized that I love having more structure and I love being part of corporate life.

Now with the company I’m at, it’s a bit in the middle. It’s established but yet small enough to make your own path.

Your Goals Will Change All the Time

To conclude this post, I want to save the most important for last: your goals will change. I thought I wanted to blog and do social media full-time post-graduate. Throughout college, I built this platform so that when I did graduate, I would be able to dive in full-time. As I was approaching my last few weeks of college, I quickly realized that maybe that’s not what I want to do.

During these past few months at my new job, I’ve been putting my blog and social media on the back burner. I’ve always told my friends that I wouldn’t be on Instagram or Facebook if I didn’t make money on social media. I would still have my blog, though – don’t worry. It’s my little outlet in life from all this chaos that’s mostly self-imposed, ha.

As I get older, I find that I’m slowly becoming more and more private with my life. I’ve shared enough over the years. 

Long story short, it’s okay if your goals will change. I know my goals will change in a few months.