Graduation Advice

College graduation season is upon us all.  There are finals to be taken.  Networking to be done.  Job applications need to be sent out or, perhaps, you’re still nervously waiting to hear back from a graduate school.  Whatever the situation may be, the adult world is getting ready to come crashing down around the ears of newly minted college graduates.  As such, it seems appropriate to offer a bit of friendly advice.

1. Keep track of those student loans.  Six months of deferment may seems like a long time, but it really isn’t.  Also keep in mind, if you can’t find a job or are employed for minimum wage, most student loans can be deferred or you can receive a variety of forbearances in situations such as that.  It is a way to postpone repayment if you must.
2. Graduation parties always seem like a good idea.  One last blast with friends to commemorate all the work.  Blowing off steam after graduation is a good idea.  You’ve probably been under a lot of stress and you don’t want to carry all of that away from graduation.  However, more than a few college graduates have never seen the next morning.  Everything from drunk driving accidents to drug overdoses and alcohol poisoning have taken the lives of young men and women who just graduated.  By all means, blow off some steam, but don’t go crazy with it.
3. Get copies of your transcript for your own records.  It may seem irrelevant now, but the exact GPA you had can get fuzzy in a big hurry and you may want to know that information if you decide to pursue graduate school down the road.
4. Get contact information from the people you want to stay in touch with after college.  Email addresses are good, phone numbers are better and permanent addresses and numbers of parents are the best.  A peron’s mother will almost always know how to get a message to her child.
5. Take fifteen minutes to write down how you felt about your college experience and what it meant to you.  Read it again in afew years and see what you think about it then.  You might be surprised at how your ideas have changed.

Perhaps the best piece of advice anyone can give to a college graduate is to give you permission to be proud of yourself.  Sticking with anything that is not an addiction for four or five or six years is hard work.  So, here’s a pat on the back from me to you.  Good job graduates!