I rarely went to the library in college =P
I’m three and a half years out of college now. If I were in that same timeframe during college, it would’ve be the end of fall quarter of senior year and I would have been reflecting on post-college life ahead, so I decided to take this chance to reflect on life after college. For most people, college was fun, carefree, interesting, and relatively straight-forward, while life after college seems to be this complex and stressful discovery of what we want in our work, relationships, and life. But I think life after college is very similar to college in many ways. We shouldn’t just reminisce at college and say that it was a fun time in life. Rather, we should view college as teaching us the frameworks on how to live. We just have to remember to ask ourselves the right questions.
Here are ten ways on how I am living life after college just like college — and the question to ask yourself if you want to live similarly:
1. My major is management. In college, we spent most of our academic time taking classes in our major in order to graduate from college and find a job. In life, most of us spend the majority of our days working in order to achieve our desired career and lifestyle. We should think of our work like a major. I think about my time at AT&T as a major in management where I took courses in leadership, marketing, operations, and sales, and I ended up graduating with honors — I received a promotion to senior manager.
Self-reflective question: Are you learning the skills and knowledge you need to be successful?
2. I have a minor in entrepreneurship. In college, we would be willing to add extra work by picking up a double major or a minor in a field because we were interested in it, thought it would compliment the major, or thought it could help with job prospects. We should try to have something on the side that feeds our passions or helps us grow either personally or professionally. I think of my startup, Best Delegate, as my minor in entrepreneurship. Most of us were passionate about many things while in college and society shouldn’t dictate that we just drop those passions after we graduate.
Self-reflective question: What’s something you’re passionate about that you can pursue on the side?
3. I chose location independence as my study abroad. Studying abroad in college broadened our horizons in many ways and as we learned a lot and made many life-long friendships, we also became even more intrigued by the world and its people, wanted to find out how we fit in it, and wanted to explore places to travel to or even work/live. I’ve done an around-the-world trip, two Asia trips, and a Latin America trip since graduation, and now I’m doing a year of location independence where I live nomadically on the road. These experiences are all meant to help me learn about myself, other people, and the world.
Self-reflective question: What part of the world — or what lifestyle — intrigues you?
4. My resume and resolutions are my GPA. Professionally, my resume is like my GPA as it captures my accomplishments in my post-grad career. Personally, I make New Year’s Resolutions every year that I intend to keep that those serve as targets on personal growth. If you want to feel successful professionally and personally, then you need to know how you’re measuring yourself and what your targets or goals are.
Self-reflective question: What metrics are you using to evaluate your career or personal success?
5. My core textbooks influence my lifestyle. In college, there was probably a set of core textbooks or authors in your major that everyone read and was influenced by. Similarly, we need to find who these core, influential authors — or mentors — are for living life. I can tell you that some of the influential authors in my life include: Keith Ferrazzi, Timothy Ferriss, Chris Guillebeau, Ramit Sethi, Neil Strauss, Jim Collins, Garr Reynolds, and Seth Godin.
Self-reflective question: Who are your core influences or mentors?
6. Moving cities is like changing dorms. In college, we changed dorms or apartments almost every year. It gave us a refresh in our environment and usually provided an upgrade on our college life. Similarly, I’ve changed apartments four times in three years by moving around in San Francisco and Atlanta. Every move opened me to new experiences and every move was an upgrade in the quality of life in some way.
Self-reflective question: How does your living situation help you achieve your ideal lifestyle?
7. I still constantly build and maintain social and professional networks. In college, I would go to parties, hang out with friends, participate in extracurricular activities, and do other things that was fun or allowed me to learn about something I’m interested in. Similarly, I try to consciously balance my social and professional networks after college to keep having fun and to keep learning. The biggest difference is that I also now have to maintain these networks, especially with old college buddies who’ve moved all over the world now. Fortunately, my 2nd year dorm mates (Sproul 2-South) are still some of my best friends.
Self-reflective question: Are you surrounding yourself with friends and professional contacts that will make your life better?
8. I still want to make a difference. In college, we were somewhat idealistic but mostly motivated to make a difference on the bigger injustices, good causes, and community issues that affected our world. We did this through volunteering, mentoring, tutoring, and advocating. Opportunities exist outside of college too. I joined several Asian-American professional organizations to promote career advancement of this group, and I volunteer with UCLA Alumni as a mentor and scholarship interviewer. We’re lucky to be where we are and we should, at the very least, give back to our community.
Self-reflective question: What are the community issues and bigger causes where you can make a difference?
9. I still don’t know what I want to do. Remember how in college most of us didn’t know what we wanted to do with our lives? Or even if we got a job, we still had all these dreams that we’d someday fulfill? I wanted to start my career in leadership and I pretty much landed a dream job in that field with the AT&T management rotation program. I wanted to start my own company and now I do that with Best Delegate. And I wanted to travel the world and I’ve done that by visiting 28 countries in the past five years. I have it good. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t experience uncertainty. I guess everyone does. It’s just how we handle it that determines whether we feel happy and successful and hopeful about our future.
Self-reflective question: How do you handle uncertainty?
10. I still root for UCLA. Our football team still sucks, our basketball team isn’t as good as the Final Four years when I was in college, and we’re now ranked lower than that school across town in the US News undergrad rankings. But that’s okay, because I still love UCLA. Go Bruins!
Self-reflective question: What’s something — perhaps your university — that has helped shape your identity or personal pride?
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That said, not everything in life after college is just like college. Here are the five biggest differences:
11. We have to manage the four currencies in life — money, time, generosity within relationships, and health — much more vigorously: In college, we didn’t have to worry about cash flow and expenses (worrying about tuition and loans gets deferred till graduation), we felt like we had all the time in the world (except during finals week), we did lots of favors for friends, and we felt immune to the effects of unhealthy habits like overeating, all-nighters, and heavy drinking. But after graduation, everything seems to become much more important. We have to take care of our cash flow. We have to make the most out of our valuable time. We have to continue to be generous in our relationships with those we love as we spread apart. And we need to take care of our health as we grow older.
Self-reflective question: Are you making and spending the right about of money, time, generosity, and health for your life?
12. Comfort and quality of life become important. Having more money and less time means we’re willing to spend on comfort and upgrade our quality of life. Unfortunately we’re not at the level where we can buy or do whatever we want yet, so we have to prioritize.
Self-reflective question What aspects of quality of life are important to you?
13. We have fewer opportunities for intellectual stimulation. Being taken out of the college bubble means fewer opportunities for intellectual engagement. I believe intellectual stimulation is necessary aspect of life though, particularly for those of us who are academically high achievers.
Self-reflective question: How do you continue to learn after college?
14. We have more flexibility to pursue travel and hobbies. Not having homework means flexibility in the limited amount of time you have to do things that you love.
Self-reflective question: How are you spending your free time?
15. It’s much harder to meet new people. When I was working long hours or living in the suburbs, it was definitely harder to meet someone or even socialize with friends, even for someone who makes a conscious effort to socialize like I do. The proximity and consistency created by the college environment made it significantly easier to meet new people.
Self-reflective question: What are you doing about it?
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I got the life-after-college idea from Janice who blogged on a similar topic: http://www.themediamaid.com/2011/lessons-old-person/
