She was ironing her graduation gown on her tiny dorm ironing board, completely frazzled. She is typically carefree and fun, but today which should be one of the most exciting days of her life, she was rattled (and it wasn’t just the hangover). Then she blurted it out, “I have no idea what I’m doing after graduation and after graduation is NOW.” She looked at her older sister, who laughed and said, “Do you really think you are the only one?”

Even though 10 years had passed, that feeling of complete uncertainty and fear is hard to forget. Bachelor’s degrees in majors like Psychology aren’t incredibly helpful, especially when you graduate during a time with a high unemployment rate (which she had, let’s think circa 2007).

Leading up to graduation, on graduation, and for months after, she (just like her younger sister) had heard some variation of this question daily: 

What are you going to do now? 

Now, that was a great question that she didn’t have an answer to. She had naively thought that college would be a clear step to her career. Somehow, she had this idea that she would walk across that graduation stage and have a job waiting for her. And not just any job, an amazing job with a great salary and a corner office. Boy was that far from the truth! Instead of setting that clear direction, college had opened other opportunities (e.g., more school, a job, maybe even being a yoga instructor) and she had no idea where to go from here. She needed more time. But, she didn’t have time. With college ending, loan payments were going to kick in. She needed to figure something out quick and moving home was not an option. Luckily, one of her friends was able to help her get a job in the Finance department of a company. This job had absolutely no relation to her degree. Take that back, she had entered data for a grad student a few times. And that’s what she did at this job, enter line after line for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Boring didn’t begin to cover it. And now, her younger sister was in the same boat…

We should start by saying that if you’re a trust fund baby, you should stop reading now. We are pretty confident that even trust fund babies walk across that stage with some uncertainty about what to do next. The difference is that you have the luxury of hitting pause after graduation. We couldn’t run away to some tropical destination and find ourselves…but don’t get us wrong, we sure would have if we could have!

Our post-graduation reality was that we needed to figure out how to get a job to pay our rent and loans (side note: they totally need to give you more than 6 months to start paying those). Finding a job right out of school is hard for most people, especially if you graduate at a bad time. It might feel like you’re the only one that doesn’t have it together yet, we’re here to tell you that’s not true. We sure didn’t have it together, and we’ve turned out okay. Well, we’re not eating ramen every day anymore.

This stage in our life was full of misadventures, but that’s what also made it some of the best times. It’s okay to fail a few times, and believe us this is going to happen. Learn how to pick yourself up. Here are some things we learned from our own misadventures, and lastly, a misadventure we wish we had done.

No one owes you anything. You have a degree, so what? So do a gazillion other (okay, the real information on that statistic is here). You are not entitled to a job. That’s all we have on that one…so next….

Think quickly and find different ways to get where you want to go. Just because you have a degree in Marketing (like Jackie does), that doesn’t mean that you need to land a marketing gig right out of college. And if you have a degree in Psychology (like Laura does), you definitely won’t land a super cool made-for-television psychologist role right out of college. Think about your “dream job” (p.s. that’ll probably change more than a few times, that’s totally okay too). What other experiences could make you successful? Remember, your loan payments will be here sooner than you think. So spending the next year thinking about where you want to go is probably not feasible – think of something quickly to tide you over (GET A JOB), but try really hard to connect it to your degree. And even THAT can be a total stretch! It’s all about how you tell the story. Did you say you had a degree in Business and want to be a consultant? Oh and then you worked as a bartender for the first 5 months after college? We’re guessing that you learned how to work with all kinds of people…(insert wink, but not really). It’s all about how you frame your story. Be your own PR and reframe your experiences as a story. Just don’t lie, that’s bad karma.

Take a pause. Yes, we know that we said most people don’t have the luxury to take a pause. But did you know you can teach English somewhere really cool? Take a year off and move to Spain. Teach English. Pay your loans. See the world. Find yourself. Fill out graduate school applications. Fill out job applications. Come back or don’t. The point is, even if you’re not a trust fund baby, there’s a way to take a strategic pause. If you’re not ready to jump in (which is TOTALLY ok), then take a strategic pause.

From our experience, it’s okay not to know what you’re going to do after school. Just figure something out soon.

You’ve heard ours, now let’s hear yours…