advice for the recent college graduate

a part II for people who are growing up

Every college senior has a unique feeling about graduation. Some are in mourning, digesting the fear that their lives will never again be as exciting, regimented, indulgent. By my final semester, I was grateful for the experience and ready to embrace the next chapter—aka moving to New York to become the bisexual Carrie Bradshaw.¹ I waited my turn to move to the big city with my big job, go clubbing on the weekends, fall in love, eat a perfect bagel—the whole nine.

What actually happened was a lot of those things—clubs, bagels, boys, girls—but post-grad life is full of unforeseen challenge. Everybody tells you adulting is hard, but nobody tells you why. You’re still brand new to the real world. It’s not quite time for life’s big questions: Should I freeze my eggs? Am I meant to meet my wife on Tinder? Is my middle child bad at Kumon? Is my husband cheating on me with the pickleball instructor? Nobody talks about the hard stuff between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-seven. What I have found is that these conditions, though lower-stakes, are still vivid and intense.

A few months ago, I wrote advice for the elite college freshman. The essay had been cooking in my brain for years, and it meant the absolute world when so many of you read and related to it. In honor of summer’s close, I thought I would write a similar piece for recent graduates who are wading into the post-college waves.

If advice for the elite college freshman exists to tell you you’re not alone, “advice for the recent college graduate” exists to tell you that, for the first time, you are.

That isn’t a bad thing.

Like last time, I will do my best to dispel the myths of early adulthood, but you’ll find that this essay enlists a bit more realism and tough love. My advice may not be as comforting or soft—but it is real. And as much as I love to be delusional, accepting what’s real is the best way to lead a fulfilling life.

Let us begin:

It’s just a first job.

Whatever job you can scrape from the pan is a good job, because it’s your first job, and its sole purpose is just that: to be a job; to pay you money. Don’t worry if it’s not your dream job. Don’t worry if your friends have cooler jobs, higher-paying jobs, etc. Take from it what you can. There is equal value in learning what you don’t like versus what you do. Realizing you hate your job could be exactly what you need to set you in a better direction.

You wanna quit? Quit.

People will say you should put a year in before quitting a job. I disagree. I know people who left their first role after three months and ended up in a better position. Don’t let anyone bully you into putting your happiness second to an arbitrary timeline. Here’s my survey:

Quitting Questionnaire

1. Work to Pay Ratio: Am I being appropriately compensated for the work I am doing?

   (The answer for any entry-level job is likely no, but it’s still important to ask).

2. Upward Mobility: Will this role expedite my growth, either at this company or elsewhere?

   (Will the bad pay/hours pay off in the long run?)

3. Culture: Is the job worth the way I am being treated?

   (Is the work culture deeply affecting your anxiety/threatening your happiness?)

If the answers are no, consider resigning.

Take care of yourself. End of story.

Be (mostly) yourself at work.

I plod through a recurring existential crisis about whether I am suited for corporate America. A few months ago, I confided in a senior team member that it’s really hard to funnel my personality through a siphon of professionalism. Instead of telling me to suck it up, she said:

You have to be yourself here, otherwise you’re going to burn out. It’s exhausting trying to be someone else.

I find it ironic that we are encouraged to cultivate an advanced sense of individuality as children, only to abandon this philosophy for the sake of corporate professionalism. Be yourself, everyone else is taken! But at work, try to be a watered-down corporate girlboss who has never had sex and realllyyyyyyyy cares about dollar share, will you?

I am not saying you should be inappropriate at work, but do try to bring your real personality to the office. Professionalism has value, but we take it too far. The more you can be yourself, the more others will feel like they can do the same, and the better your work environment will feel. Over time, people will get used to you being you and they’ll admire that. Unless you’re a stupid fucking asshole. In that case, pretend you’re someone else. Like Tom Hanks. I hear he’s great.

Log your wins.

A common tip in the corporate world is to keep a running list of your accomplishments. We tend to lose sight of our success, dwelling instead on our mistakes and leapfrogging from one goal to the next.

Take the time to congratulate yourself for things, no matter how small or how trivial. Promoted at work? List. Ex came crawling back? List! Whatever makes you feel good, even if it’s a little toxic ;) This list is for your eyes only.

Low moments are common. Get ahead of them by building a reservoir of hardcore proof that you, my dear, are awesome.

Get a hobby.

It’s fun at first—not having homework or the burden of college pressure. Your life essentially consists of work, plans with friends, dating, shopping, cooking, and physical exercise. Plus, you get paid.

But it gets old, trust me.

I can’t stress this enough: you need hobbies. Much like young children, adults need activities. Otherwise life gets boring and you get boring and your friends secretly pity you. Try something new, literally anything. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• surf lessons (indoor or outdoor depending on proximity to water)

• improv acting

• pottery

• language class

• cooking

• drawing

• wallowing in an existential vacuum

• intramural soccer

• becoming a tiktoker

I know it’s painful to drop $300 on a class, but when you think about it, that’s pretty much the cost of like, six dinners out in New York. Plus, the financial impediment is a forceful motivator. So cancel your Carbone reservation and learn Italian! Don’t you want to be that person who says to your friends: Well, you really can’t register the nuances of the dialogue in The White Lotus without native proficiency. Mi capisce?

Friendship is hard work.

Gone are the days when you step outside your dorm, walk two minutes, and bump into every person you’ve ever met, asking if you want to get in on the Econ Quizlet. In the real world, if you want friends—good friends— you’ll have to put in work.

Even if your friends live in the same city, they are disseminated across a coterie of boroughs that make it harder to connect than you initially realize. If you aren’t a careful social planner, life becomes a strange dichotomy of serendipitous run-ins with acquaintances and six-month hiatuses without seeing your best friend. Time tastes different as an adult. When you spend an entire day waiting to get off work, you’ll be surprised at how quickly the weeks go by. All of a sudden you’re like: Wait, I haven’t seen you since November! Well, how was your March Madness?

When it comes to maintaining friendships, be mindful of a few things:

1. Tighten the circle: You only have so much time each week for social plans. You’ll find yourself becoming selective about the people with whom you spend time and energy. That’s totally okay! Find the people worth keeping.

2. Build B-roll: A filmmaker shoots A-roll and B-roll, A-roll being main events and B-roll being supplemental or background footage. Think of friendships in terms of A-roll and B-roll. You will have friends that you see on more pronounced occasions—nights out, big dinners, any time you’re about to use the phrase, “for the plot.” These moments, by nature, are rare. It’s great to have going out friends, but make sure you put equal effort into cultivating B-roll friendships. These are the people you can sit on the couch with on a Tuesday watching Monsters, Inc. Friends who require little energy and are easy to be around will boost your social battery rather than drain it.

Be vulnerable with new people.

Free from your university bubble, you can now branch out and bring new people into your life. It sounds exciting, but it’s not as easy as it seems. I could not believe how challenging it was to make new friends upon moving to a huge city.

My biggest piece of advice is to be vulnerable with people more quickly than you normally would be. Get personal. Not too personal, but say something real. Take a risk, knowing it’s a low-stakes loss if the other person doesn’t seem into you.

These conversations are a quick litmus test and will, on a good day, go like this:

Here is exactly who I am. Cool with you?

Wait…yeah! I vibe with who you are. Here is who I am. What do you think?

I think: awesome. Let’s get coffee when we both have an opening, aka in two weeks. Four, if you count how often we’ll reschedule.

And then from there, there’s a 50% chance you get coffee.

Meet someone new and don’t show your truest self immediately? Your chances are reduced to 10%. Don’t believe me? Lol. You’ll see.

Also, join the apps. No shade against Bumble Friends. It’s a great app and totally not just for closeted bisexuals to go to an outdoor movie.

Plan your weekend afternoons.

A few months into living in New York, it hit me that I hadn’t a singular clue where any of my friends were between the hours of eleven and five on a Saturday afternoon. I still don’t really know the answer.

I always had evening plans, but midday weekends were met with an eerie silence. My friend, Sam and I had the same epiphany about this and started spending Sunday afternoons together, catching up. Now, we’re roommates! How cute is that? I’m trying to get that to be the start of our love story, but she won’t have it.

Sam—Text me as soon as you’re gay.

Roommate troubles? Yup.

Speaking of roommates, this one is touchy. Living with people you love but are not related to is tough. Sometimes the best and only way to preserve friendships is to stop living with your best friends. If you sense a relationship is beginning to strain and have a feeling this wouldn’t happen if you weren’t living together, listen to that instinct. Be honest with your friends. They will thank you later.

Date to learn, not to marry.

I’m not sure if I am the only person who needed to hear this advice after graduating, but here it is:

When you’re in your early-to-mid twenties, the chances of meeting your “person” are slim. You don’t know yourself or where you’re headed in life nearly as well as you thought you would. Don’t put pressure on finding “the one.” Instead, date people with the goal of learning about yourself—your needs in relationships, how you respond to other people’s behaviors, etc. Think of every partner as a mirror. Then, by the time you do meet someone great, you’ll be ready.

Also, you’re not an adult until you know your attachment style.

If you can dream it, you can do it.

If you’re a longtime reader of mine, you’ll find this message has become pattern. I do not care how many Instagram influencers and Pinterest boards tout glittered infographics with “FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS” engraved in the stars. I simply believe that everyone’s dreams are worth chasing, as long as you’re willing to work really fucking hard. If you are, nothing is out of reach.

You can read here how chronic illness taught me the hard way that my life is mine to control. If I want something, I need to make it happen for myself. Otherwise, I die with regret. And you know, #NORAGRETS.

If you don’t root for you, no one will.

There’s a stand-up comedy open mic in New York where the order in which you perform runs from most to least famous/respected in the comedy scene. I’m not a proponent of this method, but an older comedy friend brought me once and I was incredibly anxious. I’m new. I’m nobody. Before dropping my name in the bucket, I panicked.

I shouldn’t be here.

Yeah…that “insecurity” shit doesn’t fly at this mic. Don’t do that here.

Like bloody magic, I relaxed.

I don’t think this approach would have worked for everyone, but I wasn’t insecure about my material. I only needed verbal confirmation that I deserved to be there. It came at a price, however small (that price being a confession of weakness, and of course, who the fuck cares about that).

The point is this: If you have found yourself in a room, chances are you deserve to be there. Don’t look around for external validation. You often won’t find it. Take a deep breath. Shake hands with new people. Pretend you feel confident. One day you will. Be kind. Be humble. But know that it’s nobody’s job to root for you. Even if you don’t think you deserve something, you must always be your own advocate. It’s the only way to succeed.

You have all the time in the world.

This goes hand in hand with the “follow your dreams” schtick. Life is short, but it’s actually really fucking long. You have time. You do. I promise.

You are not an adult, not yet :)

You are an adult in the abstract. You make money, pay rent, know generally what a Roth IRA means, but you are innocent, confused—people at work treat you half like an intern and half like a rare exotic Gen Z fruit. Welcome to the vicenarian limbo, the liminal cosmos between college senior and Real Person. You’re like a twenty-two-year-old baby, waddling through the world.

The first year out of school will be a swirl. Everything will feel fresh, exciting, daunting, new. In the second year, the dust will settle. You’ll begin to question your career. Friendships may have shifted. You might feel panic. Lean into that feeling. Ask hard questions. Be there for yourself.

Life ain’t easy and I like that about her.

xoxo,

Shelby

1. let it be known that I hate Carrie. i’m a Miranda-Samantha and you know that.