Finding Yourself: The Case For Taking Time Off After Graduation

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Going to college today isn't like it was when your parents went (if they went) a generation ago. For one thing, getting in to college is a much trickier game today than it was a generation ago. Everything has gotten more competitive - and with that, the experience itself has become much more fast paced and goal driven.

For many of us, college is a moving sidewalk that takes us in as children and deposits us, four years later, into the world - where we are immediately bombarded with the relentless message that it is time to get started building a life, finding a spouse, settling down, and becoming "responsible" members of society. And many of us dutifully accommodate that expectation, coming out of college and going right on, with our heads down, to the "next big thing," or in order to "make someone proud of us," to "live up to expectations," or whatever it is.

Whoa there, doggie. Hold on just a minute.

Nobody believes in the power of goal setting or longitudinal thinking more than I do. It might surprise you to learn that I am also one of the most vigorous proponents of taking some time to explore all of your possible options after college before you make a real commitment to the "next thing," whatever that is.

"Wow," you might be saying. "That's a pretty stark contradiction. . . . First, this guy has me setting goals and designing a strategy for my major, my core curriculum, and even my summers off . . . and now he's telling me to explore something different after graduation?"

That's exactly what I'm telling you. And it's not a contradiction at all. If you've done college "right" - which is to say, milked the experience for all it's worth by taking as many courses as you could responsibly jam into your schedule; salting your free time with lectures, extracurricular activities, and sports; and spending the wee hours bonding with your roommates, classmates, and new friends"you're going to make the turn into senior year pretty exhausted by it all.

And then you need to write a thesis. And worry about finding a place in the world where you can actually get paid enough to survive or, in the alternative, apply to graduate school and postpone that inevitability a little bit longer.

Or for some of us, much longer.

Slow down! Why is it that so many of us are in such a hurry to "get started" on a career track at twenty-one or twenty-two?

"Money," you say. "I've just incurred all this debt, and I need to start paying it back."

Or . . .

"Responsibility," you say. "Once you graduate from college, it is time to go out into the world and start doing something with your life."

Or . . .

"My parents," you say. "They helped pay for college, and now they're expecting me to go get a job and act like an adult."

Okay, so start paying it back. Go out and do something that will allow you to start doing that. I'm not suggesting you should take a one-way trip to Jackson Hole, take up permanent residence in the ski dorm there, and drink yourself into oblivion every night. I'm not saying you should go down to Key West with your acoustic guitar and become a burnout.

All I'm encouraging you to do is to slow down in your haste to grow up.

"Are you living your own life?"

Well, are you? Or are you trying to measure up to an older sibling or doing what you think your parents want you to do?

"Are you listening to your inner voice?"