No matter how qualified and prepared for the real world you feel your college education made you, the transition to the rest of your life after college can be difficult. Your life immediately becomes about the job hunt. Your only concern is where you are going to work next, and who will be the one to hire you. Job hunts are a long and exhausting process, even for someone already twenty or thirty years into their career. For recent college graduates with no real work experience, essentially looking for a company to do them a favor or take a bet on them, finding a job is much more a long term process than a short term one.
For many college graduates, things go completely off of the rails in the lull in between their graduation and their first job. But it does not have to be that way. Your post graduation life will come with plenty of challenges, but if you are prepared and attempt to meet them, you can defeat them. Whether you have graduated from Georgetown or GW Online, you can follow this guide to common post graduation problems, and how to avoid them.
Depression
This is one of the biggest and most common concerns for anyone who has recently graduated from college and remains unemployed. Even for those who have a job, it can happen. Leaving the insulated social and educational environment of college often leaves you alone and with nothing to do. It is important to stay motivated and stay positive about what is truly a very exciting time in your life. Do this by maintaining structure. Even if you have no job, consider your job search your full time employment. Wake up early every day, eat healthy, get exercise to generate endorphins, and spend six to eight hours a day applying for new jobs. While it may be nice to treat your new situation as a vacation, it will lead to depression sooner rather than later.
Unemployment
As I have made perfectly clear thus far, it might take you a while to get a job after college. That is why the government designed the student loan post graduation grace period, where you have six months before you have to start paying off your student loans. Remember that if you go two weeks without getting a job, you haven’t failed. You are still ahead of schedule. Just exercise patience and focus. It is also important to remember that getting a job is more important than getting a good job at this point in your life. It is much easier to spend time looking for a job you actually like when you have deposits coming into your bank account.
Pressure
Whether it be pressure from your parents, the bill collectors, or yourself, the months following your graduation can be a high pressure period. You will feel obligated to start succeeding at a faster rate than anyone really does. Remember to shut the pressure out and keep your head up.