What to Expect When It’s Over

This one goes out to the seniors, who, as of the time this article being published, are just weeks away from shaking President Kathryn Morris’s hand, grabbing their degree, and riding off into the sunset.   

Some of you may have jobs lined up – congrats to you! – but a good portion of you won’t. According to Forbes, just over 50 percent of graduates are employed full-time within six months of graduation.   

To add to the struggle, the current job market may look strong at the macro level in terms of unemployment rates. However, the hiring rates – which you kind of want to be higher when you’re looking to get hired – have been steadily declining in the 2020s and currently hover around 3.3 percent, down from 4.6 percent in 2021, according to USA Today.   

The good news is there’s always graduate school. Unless, of course, you come from any semblance of a middle-class household. In that case, the federal loans you could have used to finance your bachelor’s degree may not be the surefire thing they were four years ago in the wake of President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the Education Department. For reference, I come from a single-income household (my mother) and, unfortunately, accrued a substantial amount of debt in college.   

With all that being said, I graduated a semester early in December 2024. With a slight head start on post-graduate life, I wanted to share some insights about what you may or may not experience.   

First off, take a bit of time to evaluate what’s next. If you’re someone who has known what they’ve wanted to do their entire life, that’s great. But if your primary goal in college was simply to gain a well-rounded education beyond high school, your first job may not be so clearly outlined.   

For me, I was pretty set. I knew I wouldn’t deviate too far away from the world of journalism and media.  I had my sights set on that, got lucky, and landed a really awesome internship at a newspaper reporting on topics I love, that I can use to bolster my application for my next job.   

But that role wasn’t available for me right away. I knew after college that I wanted to do an internship to gain a bit more experience before committing to a place or company semi-long term. Internships usually run in the summer. I was thankfully able to negotiate mine to start in late March.   

But what about that time in between? I wasn’t working right away, so the common belief, and what a lot of older people may say, is that I wasted it. I tend to disagree.   

In the time between my graduation and my post-grad internship, I was able to apply and be accepted to graduate programs, freelance and contribute on-air to National Public Radio, travel frugally and spend significant time with my grandparents in Florida – the last being one of the major reasons I decided to graduate early.   

What did this time put on my resume? To be truthful, very little. But I should be asking what did traveling do for my mind, what did freelancing do for my career goals, and what did seeing my grandparents and spending time with family do for my heart? I can never get this time back in my life, and that time, and relatively little commitment to a work schedule gave me a chance to find my own meaning again. I wasn’t rushing into anything.   

In college, at least if you were me, you tend to lose yourself in the grind and excitement of being there. I honestly didn’t know who I was, how to relax, or how to have fun outside of academic and professional accomplishments for the last three and a half years.   

I know not everyone will have the chance to do some of those things; I acknowledge that things lined up well for me, and I got lucky with the “in-between” time.   

But, even if it’s just briefly, I encourage you to take time after graduation to remember who you are. Talk with your parents, your friends from home, your siblings – spend time with them. You don’t know how much your life can change in an instant and when you may have to pick up and move on to a career halfway across the country or even the world.   

The process is slow, and it takes seemingly forever, and the endless pour of rejection emails is painful. But anything can change in an instant; just remember that you’ll never be a recent college graduate again.   

The world will never look as broad as it does as you’re walking off that stage. Cherish that, and don’t sprint into your next chapter; let the river of life carry you at its own pace – at least for a breath or two. You’re so much more than a job.