It’s your final spring semester and graduation is right around the corner. If that thought alone doesn’t freak you out, understanding what’s expected of you as an adult might. We broke down the top skills you’ll need to make it as an adult, and how you can master those real world skills now.
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Set goals. Know where you want to be after graduation and be specific. You may not think so now, but winding up jobless, directionless and en route to moving back in with your parents is a real possibility unless you put some professional, financial and personal goals down on paper. Decide what you want those months after graduation to look like, and then start working backward on a plan to get you there.
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Nail time management. Think managing 15+ credit hours, multiple finals and research papers, chapter meetings and balancing a social life is hard? Wait till real life. If you haven’t figured out how to stop procrastinating, be efficient, and manage your time by now, you better start. Post-grad, you’ll find you’re managing more, working more, and still happy hour’ing, but now you have taxes, bills, and a smorgasbord of other responsibilities to worry about.
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Hone your professional skill set. Before you start any job after graduation, make sure you’re professionally groomed enough to meet workplace expectations. Know how to write formal emails (and how not to -- we’re looking at you, emoji queen), update your email signature, fix your voicemail, keep your button-down’s ironed, learn how to network, firm your handshake, and stop biting your nails.
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Understand how money works. Because soon, it won’t be coming from mom and dad. Understanding how to budget, track expenses, save, and later, invest, is one of the most important skills you need for the real world (and too often not one our universities are teaching us). There are plenty of resources online to help you learn how to do this, from Saving 101 to diversifying your investment portfolio with cryptocurrencies.
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Learn to cook. Nothing fancy, nothing that puts you along the ranks of Thomas Keller or Julia Child. Think Rachel Ray, and master a couple of dishes that you can prep for a week’s worth of meals, and one with a little pizazz to impress on a Tinder date (you'll still be Tinder dat). Figure out how to use a knife and chop an onion. Life without a meal plan sucks, but it’s inevitable.
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Line up a job. If you’re not going on to grad school, start applying for jobs now. Your resume should already be refined -- now pass it along to a couple of professors you’re close with to review (because you have been going to office hours, right?). Meet with your school’s career counselors. Start following the companies you'd like to work for on social media. Set up informational interviews. The job application/interviewing process can be long, and it’s never too early to start.
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Go to office hours. You will be asked for references. If you’ve never talked to a professor out of class, done an internship, or worked part-time, you’re going to be screwed. Start developing relationships with your professors. Ask one out to lunch. They can help you get a job, vouch for you as a professional reference, or recommend alternative paths you hadn’t thought of. The benefits are endless and you won’t realize any of them until it’s too late.
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Use the crap out of your college ID. Perhaps you’ll get away with doing so even after you graduate, but student discounts are some of the best. Most sporting events, some retail shops, and lots of vacation and travel packages can give you as much as 50% off if you show a student ID. Enjoy this perk for as much as it’s worth.
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Join a club. Resume looking a little… empty? Feeling as if you’re not sure what to show for four years and tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt? It’s not too late to join a club, extracurricular, volunteer for a cause, or write for a student periodical. Plenty of employers will ask you how you spent your non-academic time in college, and winning beer Olympics junior year doesn’t count.
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Clean up your digital footprint. Privatize your Facebook, delete racy Instagrams, and deactivate accounts on websites you don’t need. When employers Google search (and image search) your name, make sure that not only the most PG-rated of results comes up, but that the results actually make you look more attractive to said searching employer.
