Are you working on planning your future and getting your money in order? Read this article to learn tips for planning your future after college.
Few things are as scary as graduating college. For the past four years, you’ve enjoyed the many privileges of being a college student. You probably haven’t had to work 40 hours a week, all your closest friends live within 5 minutes of you, and you’ve been exposed to more people, cultures, and peers that you ever will again in your life.
Nevertheless, all good things come to an end, and now it’s time to move on to the next stage of life. Although few people want to think about planning your future because it reminds them of the fact that they’ll leave the paradise that is your undergraduate career, the fact of the matter is that one has to start thinking about the future as soon as possible to ensure that one has a successful life after college.
In this article, we’ll provide you with nine crucial tips for you to remember as you kickstart your plans for the future.
1. Do Internships Now
Anyone who’s graduated from college and is trying to find a job knows that finding an entry-level job, even without having any experience, is one of the hardest things one can do
What makes the process a lot easier is if one has internship experience already. Because internships show companies that you are serious about working in your field and have probably already built up a fundamental skillset for the full-time position, employers much prefer students with solid internship experience.
Who knows? The company you’re interning for might even extend you an offer themselves! Point is, you have to start doing internships now in order to prepare for a successful professional future.
2. Build a Network
Getting an internship isn’t easy. Anyone who’s gotten one will tell you that these days, it’s a lot more about who you know rather than what you know. That’s why it’s important for you to start building your network now.
Talk to your professors. Go to industry conferences and talk to the other attendees and to the speakers. Build that professional network now so you can lean on them when it comes time to leave college.
3. Keep in Touch with Friends and Family
After you graduate college, there’s a good chance that you might leave the city you were brought up in and the city that you did your college years in. Thus, your closest friends and family will be spread across the globe.
Make it an effort, starting now, to keep in touch with your friends and family. They will be there for you when no one else is.
4. Start Budgeting
An extremely high percentage of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. That’s because they didn’t learn good financial habits while they were in college. By starting a budget and sticking to it now, you can learn good financial habits and teach yourself to stay and not overspend.
5. Create a Nest Egg
When you graduate college and move away, you may not always be offered a relocation fee by your job. Thus, you need to have a nest egg already built up in order to pay for things like a security deposit, furniture for your new place, a new car if necessary, et cetera.
Work on building up that nest egg right now by saving your money and using that budget we talked about earlier to put money away into your savings account regularly.
6. Consider Vocational School
People underestimate vocational jobs. If you don’t think that a career in your field of study is right for you, take a look at the best vocational jobs around and consider doing another course of study to train yourself for something that looks interesting to you.
7. Consider the Entrepreneurship Route
Some people just weren’t born to do the 9-5 grind. They were born to be entrepreneurs. Consider going the entrepreneurship route and starting your own business.
It won’t be easy, I can assure you, but business owners put in the long hours and hard work now so that it will pay off for them in the end and they can relax and take it easy once their business takes off.
Especially if you are able to build up some industry experience with the first few years of working outside of college, and you are able to build up a massive network of people in your industry, then making the transition to full-time business owner won’t be as hard as you think given the resources of people and knowledge that you have under your belt.
8. Don’t be Dumb
Remember that anything you do now will have an effect on you for the rest of your life. So think twice before posting that pretty unprofessional picture on social media. Whether it’s a background check or a coworker recognizing you from a funny picture gone viral, such things can have a lasting impact on your career.
Just go with the policy of if you wouldn’t want your mother to see it, don’t post it on social media.
9. Focus on Happiness
At the end of the day, the people who are truly successful in the world aren’t the ones who got the best job or make the most money. Instead, the people who really win in life are the ones who wake up everyday and choose to be happy.
Ultimately, happiness is a choice. You don’t have to do anything to be happy — you just have to be. So don’t leave college thinking that you’re gonna do whatever it takes to chase making another dollar. No one on their deathbed is ever going to say that they wished they spent more time at the office.
instead, focus on what really matters to you, whether that’s friends, family, relationships, travel, or anything else. Make those your priority, and build your life and career around that.
Planning Your Future, Made Simple
These nine simple tips should greatly simplify planning your future for you. As you prepare to enter the next exciting stage of life, refer back to this post to make sure that you’re doing everything you need to in order to be successful and happy!
For more lifestyle advice, be sure to check out the rest of the articles on our website!
