Editorial Cartoon by Clarence Aguilar
Congratulations to the grad-waiting students! You are weeks away to donning that hard-earned cap and toga and accepting the diploma. College is a blissful, albeit sometimes unkempt, time in our lives. But if college is like the golden high noon sun, life after college is the clouds that roll in the sunset, making everything dim and gloomy.
Adapting to life after graduation can be very stressful but is yet another step on the ladder of life. It is not necessarily going to be worse, but as fragile beings, we tend to fear the unknown. To be fair, there is no guide for the adult life, nor an equation for an overnight success. If you do know, put this paper down, and go enjoy your life. We look forward to seeing you on the mainland. However, if you’re in the same page with us, take this life piece with you whether you are an accountancy major, communication major, education major, or any other major, you are supposed to be stressed beyond your wits.
Life after college is, in fact, one of the most exciting experiences everyone has to go through. Somehow, you’re supposed to stand out from the hundreds of other applicants who have the exact same degree and level of experience you have or continue taking exams by getting into grad school or perhaps taking some time off to travel and enjoy a bit.
But if you are certain on landing your first job, the journey from the Colegio’s gate to the door of your first job is a humbling and a learning experience. Job hunting may seem hopeless and a never-ending endeavor, despite sending what feels like the hundredth copy of resume, you still likely will end up not in your dream job. Instead, you will probably find yourself somewhere that is fine. If it makes you feel better, people rarely love their first jobs.
The whole adult life can get you feeling anxious. After securing your job, the pressure to get things right this time is higher. You are expected to have your share on paying bills, to budget your own money without asking for help from your parents and have a better understanding of adult things. Graduating will just radically change the way you look at everything, whether it’s for better or for worse.
Maintaining connection with your college buddies might be one of the biggest lost to life after graduation. When you leave college, you also leave the tightest, largest concentration of people who are your age. Suddenly, you are all scattered around the country fighting to walk into the quad of successful adults. Burn a few bridges and tighten a few ones. It is not easy to maintain a few friends or make friends as an adult but it’s definitely possible if you will be brave.
Our generation gets unfairly labeled for entitlement. Be humble at work. Don’t act like you know everything already. You don’t, but so does the adults. Generation older than us are a little afraid of us sometimes. They need us, just as much as we need them.
You don’t have loans or kids or other responsibilities yet. Want to start a business specializing in high maintenance pets that need the attention of hypersensitive kids? Go for it. What’s the worst that can happen? You try it for a few years and if it fails you will be 25 or younger. You have the rest of your life to play it safe and try a dozen of opportunities.
At this point, you are going to feel vastly proud of the things you have achieved, confident that you are qualified to live your own life, after all you can always find a way if the shoes you have been given are too big for you to fill.
The LANCE would like to congratulate batch 2017-2018 on finishing college. You’ve got one foot on the ladder and now you get to climb it. Just because your formal education might have ended it doesn’t mean you should stop acquiring new learning. After all, te best lessons are acquired through developing connections, experience, skills, attitude, and pressure.
Congratulations on making it to the real world. It has been waiting for you.