Life After College

For many, the transition to life after college and one’s early 20s in general, while often full of excitement can also be a time of great stress. Huge changes often happen – finding a job, moving to a new city, living on your own for the first time, purchasing health insurance, budgeting including paying student loans, and even perhaps becoming engaged or married – all of which necessitate personal and financial responsibility. But for some of us, the transition to life after college is defined even more basically with the questions “Who do I want to be?” and “What do I want to do in my life?”

Delta Zeta Life Skills App
Delta Zeta’s recently updated Life Skills App, available for iPhone/iPad, Android, and Blackberry, is a great place to start and continually reference as you are starting out after college. The app includes information on a wide variety of topics. As you transition out of college, some great topics to take a look at are:

• Housing – moving, apartments, renter’s insurance
• Money – credit, taxes, retirement
• Health – insurance, health spending accounts, life insurance

Turning Point in Your Life
It is common to compare your current situation in life with those of your friends, family and acquaintances. But always comparing can result in feelings of inadequacy or jealousy. It is important to recognize that each of us takes an individual journey and we must persevere towards our dreams, however we have defined them. A fun, short read for new graduates that emphasizes this idea is When They Were 22: 100 Famous People at the Turning Point in Their Lives by Brad Dunn. Here are a few tidbits he shares:

• When she was 22, Jane Goodall quit her job as a secretary, waited tables for 10 months, and saved enough money to visit a friend’s farm in Kenya. Her thirst for zoology impressed an acquaintance who offered her a job studying wild chimpanzees.
• When he was 22, Richard Branson re-branded his small mail-order business by opening a recording studio and launching Virgin Records.
• When he was 22, after several disappointing professional ventures, Billy Joel was playing lounge piano at a bar in Los Angeles. His experiences there let him to write his signature tune “Piano Man” which one him a contract with Columbia Records and a hit album less than 2 years later.
• When she was 22, Estee Lauder was learning to make facial cream in her uncle’s laboratory. She began selling her products to salons and even while walking on the beach. Within 30 years she had turned her tiny home business into a multimillion dollar cosmetic company.