Advice for 2015 College Graduates

My sister, who is nine years younger than me, will graduate from college this May. I can’t wait to see her walk at her graduation ceremony and claim her hard-earned diploma, and I’m sure many other local families are eagerly looking forward to watching their loved ones do the same.  While I’m sure I will annoy her over the next few months with plenty of unsolicited advice, here are just a few suggestions off the top of my head for the other soon-to-be college grads out there:

Learn to balance your checkbook and do your taxes.

For a lot of us, online banking is so second-nature that we don’t even bother to balance our checkbooks each month.  But learning the very simple process of balancing your account each time you get a statement will make you much more aware of precisely how you are spending your money each month.  It can be very stressful to look closely at your finances, especially when you’re fresh out of college and barely have enough money to pay your bills and student loans, but reviewing your account in this way will give you a good idea of areas in which you might be able to spend a little less and save a little more.

Most recently-graduated college students don’t have particularly complex tax returns, meaning you can easily learn how to file them yourself.  While they may seem very daunting at first, learning how to do your taxes yourself while they’re still simple will make it easier for you to understand what forms and deductions you need as you get older and your returns become more challenging.

It’s OK if you change careers a few times.

College students are expected to pick a major as soon as they enroll, if not during their application process.  In some cases, high schools also encourage students to focus on a particular course of study even earlier.  That’s a lot of pressure on a 16-18 year old to decide how they want to spend the next 60+ years of their life!  But if you graduate from college and simply aren’t sure what you’re going to do next, that’s completely OK – AND it’s still OK even if you loved the courses you took in your major but don’t know how that will translate to a job.  Most Americans change jobs anywhere from 5 to 7 times over the course of their lives, and more recent studies show that people born between the late 70s and late 90s may change jobs 15 to 20 times.  It is very likely that you will move around a bit and your first job will not be your last job.

Nobody knows what they’re doing.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “Fake it till you make it.”  No one graduates from college with a sudden and complete grasp on how to do all the things you need to do to take care of yourself and “be an adult.”  It’s perfectly fine, and expected, if you make mistakes or are stressed by the new responsibilities you have – what matters is that you keep trying.  One day you may find that a task which sounds horribly stressful and scary now (like balancing your checkbook) has finally become second-nature to you and actually helps you feel more in control of your new, independent life.

Best of luck to all the soon-to-be college grads out there, and congratulations to the class of 2015!

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