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Email ThisToday, I have a post on Life Before Noon as part of the blog’s “Weeks of Wisdom” series. Rather than giving advice, I decided to share experience. I talked to some friends about some of the best aspects of being out of college and some of the less-than-fun stuff. I’ve pasted the lists below, but check out the full post here.
The Good:
5) No papers, no exams, no homework. EVER. When you leave the office at the end of the day, you’re DONE. Unless of course you decide to go back to school. Then you’ll be stuck studying while everyone is at #4.
4) Happy Hour! There’s nothing like drink specials to take the edge off the day. And grabbing drinks with friends after work is way cooler than drinking badly brewed beer in your buddy’s dorm room.
3) No more esoteric lectures and annoying professors. You never have to force yourself to sit through lectures about the history of Russian Czars or the sociology of the fork in the Elizabethan era again.
2) Implementing what you’ve spent your whole life learning. You’ve spent all these years in school learning things that will help you contribute to society. Now you get to implement all that theory at work.
1) Disposable income!! Yes, the two exclamations marks are deliberate. Odds are you won’t be making mega bucks immediately after college, and you’ll probably have some debt to pay off as well. But, you’ll also have more cash in your pocket to spend on whatever you want. I don’t need to explain why that’s a beautiful thing.
The Bad:
5) Weekends don’t start on Thursdays. Some weeks you’ll forget this rule. And boy, you’ll pay for it on Friday morning.
4) Bad jobs usually last longer than bad classes. Unless you’re REALLY lucky, you probably won’t love your first job and you’ll just have to suck it up. Probably for more than six months.
3) More responsibility. You’ll find yourself talking to other people about health insurance and other topics that previously made you snore.
2) No more summer vacation. Yeah, that’s it. It’s over, unless you teach.
1) Working 9-5. Actually, if those are your hours, you’re pretty damn lucky. Almost everyone I know works more than that. But the point is that your days will be less flexible. You get up, go to the same office EVERY day. No sleeping in during the week. There’s just way less variety, it’s not so fun.
Shocked about these lists? Think something was left off? Want to elaborate? Feel free to comment.
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Funny, but I can really only come up with additional bad ones:
1) Weight gain - Forget the Freshman 15. No walking to class + less time to go to the gym + sitting on your butt for 10 hours + free donuts in the conference room = ballooning up once you graduate.
2) Commuting - No more getting up 5 minutes before class starts and rolling out of your dorm to the lecture hall.
3) No more large groups of young people - College gives you an instant group of people your age for developing friends, relationships, etc. None of that in the workplace, get used to hearing boring stories about people’s kids.
4) No more cheap to free beer - $4.00 Bud Lights??? Are you kidding me?
5) Where did all the free t-shirts go?
Love your additions Andy. Personally, I lost weight after college - less beer binges, less 2am McDs trips, and actually having to pay for a gym membership, which guilted me into going! Maybe it’s different for women though.