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 trying 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. Some people were sad that they didn’t have a graduation ceremony, but I saw it as an easy out. My parents are separated, and for as long as I can remember, they can barely coexist in the same building, so the pressure of me having to invite both of them to graduation was lifted off my shoulders.
Anyway, I digress. Enough of me talking about my family dilemma, ha. Weeks leading up to my graduation, people asked if I was nervous about the post-grad life, and truth be told, it wasn’t anything different than what I’ve been doing. I never really experienced the full college experience. My college life was work, school, and sleep.
I threw myself into work a lot during college because that’s all I knew. I never really went out to parties, clubs, or let loose. It was deadlines, due dates, etc.
One-Year Post-Graduation
Now that it has been one year after graduating, here’s a recap of what I’ve learned.
Having a Routine
I have a love/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 quite 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, ha.
Making Friends
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 for me 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, some through mutual friends.
It’s weird; with social media, we’re all so connected, yet disconnected at the same time.
Friendships will Change
Thinking about how friendships changes 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/or other things.
As I get older, I find that I prioritize friends and family above work and other aspects of my life. I think 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, going out, and having fun.
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 in coffee with a fancy machine 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—I feel I’m a very entrepreneurial person, but I quickly realized that I love having more structure and 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
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 backburner. 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.
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