Graduating From College - How to Prepare for Life After College

By Mondon Lee

After a crazy graduation celebration, throwing the graduation caps into the air, you and your friends were gathering, drinking and saying goodbye to rushing assignments, exams and the lovely diet with cereal and baked beans. Seems like your future is so bright and shiny after graduation. However, for the ones having a clear plan, it's true, but for the rest of you, it's might not that easy. First of all, you should seriously ask yourself three "simple" questions:

1. Who do you want to be?

2. What kinds of work do you want to do?

3. Which type of lifestyle do you want to have?

The words are easy to understand, but lots of people can 't tell the answers because the answers will bring out the choices, which will further impact your following life. In fact, there are various options to take after university and everyone has their own journeys, so all of you will be different. You can go to a postgraduate school, find a graduate job, start your own business or even travel around the world. Whichever you choose means that you should take the full advantages of any free time to make your plans and take real actions.

1. Get a graduate job

After graduation, Looking for a good job is the choice for the majority of new graduates. Your first port of call should be communicating with your relevant university department, for parts of them, they do offer recruitment service for their students and it will significantly lower the working barrier for you.

According to the words of Philippa Hardie, a careers consultant at the University of Chester, sometimes small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) are the most suitable options for fresh graduates. Being a small fish in a big pound is not right for everyone and SMEs can offer your more training and challenges.

Moreover, finding a job may take a while. Be carefully don't leave a blank gap on the CV, you can fill the time with some part-time jobs, volunteering, and internship.

2. Become you own boss

Don't just stand inside the box, sometime you need to stand outside to see the world. If you can't find a dream job and don't want to settle for just a job, why not create one by starting your own company, it could be an extremely interesting process to turn your business idea into reality. Therefore, if you have the sufficient confidence and tenacity, self-employment should be a smart move. There are some main advantages for self-employment:

* Independent power to make decisions

* Control over what to do and who to work with

* Flexible time management

* Pay for any opportunities fit with you

However, nothing is perfect. You should understand that self-employment also means that you need to juggle a number of responsibilities such as marketing the business, staff management, uncertainty/problem management and financial things. Therefore, before starting your own business, you should be sure that if you would like to take these challenges.

3. Go for a Master's degree

"if you really have a desire to study a particular aspect of your undergraduate course in more depth, then postgraduate study is the answer," says Philippa.

Therefore, if you are certain that you have the right reasons, It's still a good choice to back to school and study for a specific Master's degree  you are interested. Some courses like law and philosophy do need an in-depth study to qualify. However, don't take it to just stall for time, it's not worth and your important years could be wasted.

4. Take a gap year

Travelling around the world to take a gap could help you see more the world, meet different kinds of cultures and learn various languages. it's not just playing, a rich life experience could make you as a much more attractive job candidate and also bring you with some fantastic inspiration during your career in a long run.

If you want, working while travelling is also a good option to develop your skills and could help you find out your favorite lifestyle during the process. Don't expect a dream job will be standing there to let you catch, try as much as you can to discover it.