9 Things People Won’t Tell You About Getting A Job After College
Briefly, you’ll feel like the world is more than manageable; it’s easily conquerable.
By 
Lance Pauker
1. You’ll Become A Fine Purveyor Of Coffee or Tea
For 20 plus years, you were mystified as to why adults couldn’t seem to function without clutching a hot cylindrical cup. As you powered through college with all-nighters here and there, the answer became more clear. But the coffee drinking back then was more predicated on what was affordable, and what got the job done. Translation: we oftentimes went with Red Bull
Now coffee (or tea) is not only a necessary part of a proper morning routine, but it’s considered “a thing to do.” Instead of spending most nights drinking, you’ll be spending most mornings telling everyone the merits of your fine home-brewed Colombian Roast; something that’s become a crucial component of an overly elaborate morning routine.
Speaking of which…
2. You’ll Value The Sanctity of a Routine
One of the #hardertruths you’ll learn from postgraduate life is that you don’t have 17 different hours a day to choose from when determining when you’d like to the grocery store. Be it going to the gym, picking up your dry-cleaning, or feeding yourself properly with the aforementioned groceries, having to be somewhere for 8+ hours a day means we’ve got a lot less time to be productive.
Thankfully, a job breeds a routine. And a routine makes roommates walk in the door all happy about the fact they have themselves together. This inherently, gives us something a lot more valuable than completing the task itself; it gives us innate satisfaction.
3. You Get To Do Power Lunch
Speaking of satisfaction, you don’t know the true meaning of the word until you’ve crushed steak, mashed potatoes, and whiskey between the hours of twelve and two on a Wednesday. All while wearing a nice suit.
Briefly, you’ll feel like the world is more than manageable; it’s easily conquerable.
4. You’ll Probably Start A Cool New Hobby
You may have heard through the grapevine that it’s very tough to make new friends in the postgraduate world. But if you’re willing to expand your horizons, this isn’t true at all.
Be it a rec sports league, an improv comedy class, or weekend-long internet coding marathon, there are countless ways to meet new people while ALSO satisfying an innate life interest. If you need a place to start, try your friend the internet.
5. You’ll Start Getting a Proper Education For The Finer Things In Life
If you’re like me, you’ll look at your elder people’s wine knowledge as if you were a 9th grader trying to answer a calculus problem. But what we sometimes forget is that developing taste takes time–at some point, they were just as clueless as us.
Be it wine, food pairings, or decorative art, the process of developing “finer” tastes begins to ferment at this life stage. Let it breathe as you start making money of your own. In a decade you’ll be a connoisseur.
6. Not Going Out Every Weekend Night Is…Refreshing
Swapping the pounding headache for a glass for freshly squeezed orange juice and The New York Times becomes much more commonplace. This may sound like the activity of a 44 year-old, but you’ll slowly begin to realize those 40-somethings have some things right. Clear eyes, healthy livers, can’t lose.
7. You See The Results Of The Work You’re Doing
Gone are the days of fretting over arbitrary letter grades that may or may not have any impact on your overall future. Graduating college means trading in the A’s and B’s for those highly coveted $$$$ signs.
The paycheck may not be as fat as we’d like, but proper bulking up takes time. Time for them workday protein shakes.
8. You’ll Begin To Dominate The Leftover Game
Money will probably be pretty tight, and you’ll quickly learn that all the stuff you want to do probably won’t be possible without some serious cutbacks. Probably the easiest way to do this is actually eat your leftovers.
I’m not gonna look up the statistics cause that requires opening up a new tab, typing in something, then browsing 3 different websites to confirm my suspicions (all of which takes years in internet time), but the point is that A LOT of food gets thrown out every year.
If you’re still skeptical, just think about that pasta you threw out last week. That’s a meal. Add it up over time, that’s 52 meals.
If each meal costs $5, that’s over 250 for the year. That’s a flight somewhere.
9. Your REAL Education Starts Now
There’s no point in trying to quantify it. The amount you learn–about yourself, about the world, about why paying taxes is such a complicated process–increases a gazillion-fold once you graduate college. This is because the world is now your classroom, and you’ve got no choice but to pass. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on the street corner, in desperate need of a teeth cleaning. Stakes raised, and it’s time to earn that “A.” 