Why it's Hard to Adjust to Post Grad Life

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I am having a hard time with life in general. I have always been able to adjust quickly and easily to whatever situation was thrown at me. Sometimes it took me a few days, sometimes a few weeks, but it has been over a year since graduation and I am still not entirely adjusted. But, at least now I think I have pin-pointed why.

  1. We have no built-in goal. Through High School and College alike we had a built in goal: graduation. There was an end point, there was a plan, there was light at the end of the tunnel. We were working towards something. Once we graduate most of us have 1 goal: get a job. Ok, well what about after we have a job?
  2. No Built-in vacations. Since we entered the schooling system we have had built in vacations. Summer was longest, followed by 2 weeks for Winter Break, one week for spring break, and some 3-4 day weekends sprinkled through the rest of the year. We could relax, read for pleasure, travel, whatever we chose. Now most of us have 10 vacation days a year and have to fight for holidays and weekends off.
  3. The repetition. Every day includes the same tasks, people, problems, solutions, places, etc. No longer do we have 2 or 3 different topics to focus on in a given day. We can't change what we focus on every semester. We have a job, and a boss, and some co-workers, who may change slightly, but the focus is still the same every day.
  4. Our support system has scattered. In college most of our friends lived in the same city, if not the same house. You could easily grab coffee after a class, have a mini-freak out, and feel better about life. Now our friends have scattered to different cities, sometimes even different countries. And mini-freak outs are turning into major ones.
These are the three main reasons I came up with that are making this Post Grad thing difficult. I know that they do not apply to everyone, but they are broad enough to be relatable. While I know that there are ways to remedy numbers one and three, I am not at the point of acceptance yet. I am half in denial that this monotony is now my life and therefore will not yet try to fix it. I keep hoping that one morning I will wake up and something magical will happen and it will no longer need fixing.

And then I realize that in order to actually get my life together I need to set some goals and make some changes. Here's hoping I have the energy to work on that very very soon.

5 comments:

  1. you have definitely mapped it out clearly! I feel the same way but I guess I never understood why. And a part of me felt silly and almost messy. Like i had this unorganized life. But this is so it! It's hard to adjust!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the post. So true! I think the most difficult part is that, yes, there are no evident goals. In school, we always had exams that we wanted to do well on, presentations that we wanted to blow our professor's minds with, even eternal papers that amount to lots of hours of work into a 20-minute read-through and critique. Now, we have to choose the goals we want to accomplish.

    k bye.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Totally.

    I was so surprised to find that I still didn't feel normal a year after graduation. Every time I finally feel like I've adjusted, some mini catastrophe comes along.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've been out for six months and feel exactly the same way. I guess I had this idea (illusion) that things would fall into place on their own - a salaried job, my own place, the right people, the right circumstances, and time to pursue the things I enjoy. I think the things you mention are the big ones. Hopefully things fall into place, even if us post-grads have to to some shoving around to reach that point.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love this and it is so true!

    Even goals we have are short-term or they're personal. They're not usually related to the daily grind, at least mine aren't (unless making more money counts as a goal?).

    And you pretty much spelled out exactly what I feel! I never thought about it, though, but now that you said it--makes tons of sense. And I've been out for going on 3 years. It's frustrating but has gotten better in some ways. But especially 2 and 3 is why I have considered going back for a teaching degree.

    ReplyDelete