Class of 2013, we’re all feeling it at this point. The ‘real world’ is breathing down our necks and expecting us to start paying back our student loans at some point in the coming year and all of our friends seem to know what they’re going to do after graduation. Everyone has it figured out except for you. So now your only prospects are to go home, move back in with the ‘rents and hope to maybe get your job back at the Panera down the road.
Or so it seems.
Yah, we might have only a month left before graduation and everyone’s probably asking you what you’re planning on doing after you’re done, but that’s no reason to panic. There is absolutely no reason why we should let what others feel is the right way to live our lives dictate how we, well, live our lives.
But maybe this is the best thing, not having a job. Some kids are gonna go to grad school because they think it’s what they need, not what they want. And others are just going to get a job working at Subway so that they can go shopping, just a placeholder until they get that big corporate job all of our studying has been building up to.
But we’re young. We’re wild. We’re free. And after years and years of non-stop learning, it’s time to just give all of that a break and grab life by the balls and find your gusto (that was my dad’s suggestion earlier this semester, ‘find your gusto’). Learn to skydive, sell all of that annoying college stuff on Ebay and try couch hopping your way across the USA or through Europe. Learn to speak Mandarin or else start working on that screenplay for the Zombie vs. Vampire movie you had been joking about since Sophomore year of high school.
Don’t think that you have to fit into the standardized box of joining the workforce. We’ve been in college for 4 years (some of us longer), with the mentality that nothing can hurt us, so keep living that up and just enjoy life while we’re still young and able to travel places.
So don’t freak out that your best friend is going to be doing Teach for America. Because you’re hoping to maybe catch a plane to Thailand to help protect the elephants. And we both know who’s going to have the cooler stories when they’re older.