The Best Years of Your Life? How to Avoid Post-College Regrets

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When you were in college, every weekend was a cause for celebration. There didn’t need to be a holiday, a football game, or a birthday for you and your friends to go off. Now that you’ve graduated, and, hopefully, found a job, days off should be cherished the same way. Instead of spending it to catching up on housework and laundry, go out and see your friends. You can binge watch Netflix the rest of the week. Weekends are your only source of sanity.

After college ends, so do a lot of friendships. It’s the passage of time, and the fact that you don’t live in the same building and have all the same classes together doesn’t help either. Some friends will disappear from your life, but you’ll always have Paris Facebook stalking. For the friends that stick it out, make time for them: grab dinner and drinks, go see their awful improv show, help them move.

Obviously, you’ve learned how to enjoy alcohol responsibly, but there are a lot of other limits that you need to figure out. How much money can you spend each week and still make rent? How much credit card debt are you willing to add to your college debt? How many days can you go without sleeping? The real world does not favor the weak, nor does it favor the person who doesn’t have a savings account.

For a lot of people, the furthest they’ve been from home was actually their college. Now that you’ve graduated, and maybe before you land a job that you have a degree in (haha, just kidding, the job market is awful), you probably have time to travel. You’ve spent like 19 years in a classroom. Put forbearance on your loans, use the money from your retail gig, and go somewhere you’ve never been before.

Approach the next step—don’t jump blindly into it. It’s easy to go along with the thought process of, “I graduated high school, I graduated college, I met a significant other, we’re getting married, and we’ll buy a house.” Just because that’s the way it works for some people doesn’t mean that that’s the way it will work for you. If you do have a significant other and you’re not 100 percent into the relationship, end it. If you aren’t ready to apply to grad school, don’t just sign up because you think that’s the next step. Everyone is going to ask you, “Now what?” Actually figure out what the next step will be for you.

A little thing called “networking” is actually the best friend you should’ve made in college. Seriously, has anyone gotten a job right out of college that hasn’t been through someone they know? Stay in the alumni network, keep in touch with professors who can help you out, and always keep in mind who you should add on LinkedIn.