I graduated college four years ago this May, which means I’ve officially been out of school for as long as I was in it. As an introspective, humanities-educated 20-year-old, I made a bold statement to my journal that I would go through the most personal growth in my life between the years 18 and 22. (I felt SO mature!) I wasn’t necessarily wrong – I did grow up a lot in those four years, but I should have realized that life never stagnates. People will always be growing and changing.

Back in the fuzzy, unspecified nostalgia of the past, there used to be simply child and adult. (If you go far enough back it was simply baby, miniature adult and adult). In this post-modern media-driven time, there are many denominations of age. Infant, toddler, child, pre-teen, tween, teen-ager, collegiate, young adult, adult, middle-aged, and somewhere looming in the distance is geriatric.

The transition from idealistic undergraduate – funded by parents, fueled by Pabst Blue Ribbon – to an independent young adult, can be daunting. So I offer my seasoned advice to recent grads in hopes of alleviating some growing pains.  

1. Wake up early. While my collegiate career was marked by 7 a.m. runs and two workouts per day as a Nordic skier, I acknowledge that most people, my roommates included, did not rise with the sun unless they had an early class that could not be rescheduled (or if they had one of those job-things). But you, young graduate, you are no longer forced by unsympathetic class schedules or bosses to wake before it is convenient for you.   

 
Do not let this become a habit. Rise early. See the sun rise over your town, watch the world wake up. Walk your dog – you have probably neglected him in the frenzy of graduation parties. If you have taken a nine-to-fiver, avoid the impulse to sleep as long as you possibly can while still being 5 minutes late to work. It always seems like a good idea, it usually is not worth it. Whether you are walking off your hangover or meditating on your future, the peace of the early morning can offer answers that are found at no other time of day.

2. Clean your house. Attempt to keep your house clean, and not just when your parents come to visit. If you are very organized or ambitious, you may choose constant cleanliness, but this is more of an adult attribute than young adult. Personally, I don’t know how adults maintain a spotless residence. I myself usually clean before I have a column to write or papers to grade. It’s a good system that leads to cleaning about once a week.  You must find your own method, but remember, you no longer have the excuse of classes to attend, and it becomes increasingly unacceptable to have a messy house the farther you get from graduation.

3. Read. Without professors, classes and required readings, some of you may have a strong disinclination to pick up a book, let alone open it and let your eyes skim over the crude black hashes and symbols of language that are printed on the page. Here’s the truth: you are old enough now to know yourself. You must have interests, desires, or at the very least, a favorite movie. You can find all of the aforementioned in book form.

 Do not stop reading simply because you have stopped attending classes. The world is full of stories and information that were not even broached in your undergraduate education. You continue to grow and to gain education, it is important to read books, magazines, newspapers, anything that doesn’t substitute the letter “u” in place of the three letter second-person pronoun.

4. Explore. Haven’t been to Canyonlands? New York City? Glacier National Park? Costa Rica? Go! Hike La Plata Peak. Save for a plane ticket. Drive cross country. Broaden your horizons. It’s imperative to break routine, to find opportunities, and to challenge yourself with new places and people and opportunities. I came home to Colorado after four years in Montana and found amazing new places and people in my home of 22 years.  Maybe you need to take a job in a new location or an internship with new people, a raft trip on a river you’ve never run, or a country where you don’t speak the language. GO!

This is the simplest and most urgent of all the young adult commandments. The future is always receding, take advantage of youth, confidence and minimal responsibilities to go to places you’ve always wanted to see.  Often, what you find on the way is the most valuable part of the journey.

5. Set Goals. As an extremely goal-oriented youth, graduation brought on freedom from routine and loss of direction. While life felt luxurious for a while, like an episode of “Sex and the City” that simply shows people eating lunch and talking, drinking cocktails and talking, or flirting, it was unfulfilling. Without the education system to tell me which classes to take, without professors to tell me which books to read, and without a coach to tell me where to run/ski, I felt liberated. I also felt lost.

I am a person that craves direction, and I assume I’m not alone in this. Setting and reaching goals gives fulfillment and purpose. It can be something little, like running a 5K race. Ride the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic – if you’ve lived here any number of years and haven’t been a part of it, you’re missing out! Take ceramics. Take Spanish/French/Italian. Set goals for your career and find a way to get there, especially volunteer or internship opportunities.

 
Post-graduate stagnation is a dangerous swamp of misgivings and indecision. There is not one answer for everyone, but my advice, since you’ve made it this far in the column, is to take advantage of this uniquely solitary time in your life to set new goals, read, travel, to enjoy the beauty of a sunrise and the calm of a clean house.

– Maggie Casey