How Life After College Started
During the first quarter of my junior year at UCLA I got the opportunity of a lifetime. My political science professor and mentor suggested a possible internship opportunity for me at a startup company in Palo Alto. I grew up there and was ahead in school, so I told her and the founder I would move home to work full time if it meant I could help start the company. I anticipated filing papers - I was wrong. I had tremendous opportunities and responsibilities, but I hadn't anticipated what it would be like to be in the real world - to work full time, to save money, to spend so much money, to be so far from my friends. As much as I loved the confidence I got from working so hard and learning so much every day, at times I felt incredibly lonely and confused.
There's no manual for the real world. In high school and college we have guidance counselors, course requirements and teachers. But the minute we graduate into adulthood, it seems we are immediately expected to understand where to go, what to do, and how to get wherever we're going next. Once we do land a decent job, we're expected to know how to do whatever it is our boss asks us to do. Once the first paycheck comes, we're supposed to know about taxes and healthcare and direct deposits and investing and saving for retirement. We go from being surrounded by our friends all the time in college to being surrounded by a scattered few once we graduate.
A year after I started at Polimetrix I went back to UCLA for one last quarter to finish school, and another year later I changed companies and got a job as a Training Specialist at Google. While working at Google, I started a web design & consulting business teaching people HTML, CSS and Dreamweaver, and I'm also in the process of becoming certified to be a professional Life Coach.
I believe life after college is amazing. And I learned a lot in the year I spent at home, when people wondered if I'd dropped out of school for good, when my friends were still writing papers and going to parties. I read books, scrounged websites, and sought advice - and now I'm passing as much as I possibly can onto you. I hope you find the site useful, and please - if you have any tips, stories, or advice for life after college, please send it my way!
Sincerely,
Jenny Blake