The Reality of Post-College Graduate Life

We all see graduation as an exciting time in our lives. We get dressed in a cap, gown, and our nicest outfit for the big day. We walk across that stage. We receive our diplomas (AND DEGREES!!!). We walk off the stage feeling accomplished, proud, and ready to take on that next chapter in our lives. We celebrate our achievements with our friends and family who potentially are doing just that, too. Perhaps, we MAY even take graduation photos in the midst of ALL that excitement. BUT, the excitement and gratitude from all of those exciting college graduation moments seems to disappear in the blink of an eye. And, just like that, we are thrust out of the college world and into the big, scary adult world.

For more posts on post-college life, look no further than here:

If you know me and have been following along with me on Instagram (follow me @_thepinkchickadee!!) and the blog, then you know that I am a recent college graduate. I graduated from Meredith College a year ago (May 2021) as of when I am publishing this blog post with a Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and triple minors in Data Science, Statistics, and Website Development and Honors. I also served on several college committees and won 5+ awards throughout my college experience. Everyone knew who I was on my college campus, as a result of my bright pink and preppy style, on-campus involvement, go-getter personality, and outgoing and bubbly persona. Just a day after my college graduation I moved from my college town of Raleigh, North Carolina to the big city of Washington, DC where I started my job at a company that I LOVE soon after. That all being said, my identity was defined by all of my experiences in college. Then, when I graduated from college, all of that went away. My identity, which was filled with being that girl involved in ALL of the committees, dressed to the 9’s in bright pink, and somehow making friends with everyone in between it all, left me along with my college years. Everything seemed to disappear and fall apart after college. And, truth be told, I still really miss those college years where everything felt as if it was in its place where it was meant to be.

Change is inevitable. Change is the one constant in ALL of our lives. Change is the one thing that we should all expect from life, whether we like it or not. With post-college graduate life, change is everywhere and at EVERY turn.

For many of us, post-graduate life changes involve a move, whether nearby or far away. Some of those moves can involve a brand-new city, back home, or even nearby our old college stomping grounds. Whatever the move may be, it IS a change to leave college apartments and/or your college campus for something else. We may be living with our parents, siblings, or grandparents and having to re-establish our relationships with those in our lives who we left just a few years beforehand and changed and grew so much in those years since initially leaving home. We may be living with roommate(s) and adapting to living independently and paying rent, utilities, and many other things on our own, too. Either way, packing up ALL of our belongings and college memories and life and moving elsewhere is tough. At the same time, friends from college and from back at home become dispersed, whether in different cities or different places within the same city/metropolitan area. Many of my friends live within 30 minutes from me that are in the Washington, DC area. I feel lucky by that statistic, too, given how vast the Washington, DC area is. The same goes for my friends Hannah and Alanna in the Raleigh-Cary-Durham, North Carolina area. Hannah, Alanna, and I were talking the other day about how many of us are lucky if we see our friends once a week in the postgraduate world, as opposed to all day everyday as in the college world. That is a BIG CHANGE!

Jobs take up A LOT of our time, whether we like it or not. I am very lucky to say that I had a job before graduating from college at a great company that I am lucky to say that I LOVE here in the Washington, DC area. I have several supportive coworkers and have been learning a lot on the job. I feel VERY fortunate to have all of this. I know several people who spend MONTHS if not YEARS searching for a job post-graduation. It is hard and, essentially, looking for a job IS A JOB. Either way, work WILL take up a lot of your time. It is not easy to find that work-life balance, especially the first few years out of college. We go from waking up at 12pm if we so choose to after staying up until 4am doing homework assignments to waking up much much much earlier to check emails, pings in Microsoft Teams and/or Slack, and meetings. We may even have an occasional or regular routine commute into work, too. Work IS exhausting. It is for everyone. It’s much different than college classes, but thankfully there is NO homework in the working world (*cues confetti!!!*). That is a BIG CHANGE!

We are out in the real world. We are in working jobs. We are paying rent and groceries and bills and potentially even student loans and everything in between it all, too. We are not asking our parents anymore for money, since we now have our own paychecks. We understand the value of money. We understand the expensive cost of things, such as groceries, gas, car payments, cell phone bills, rent, utilities, health insurance, auto insurance, 401K retirement accounts, savings accounts, and much much much more. It is all A LOT. We are gaining a newfound sense of independence. As, in previous times, our parents usually for the most part, handled those types of things. Adulting was beyond our own brain’s scope of comprehension. Those days are behind us and we are officially adults. That is a BIG CHANGE!

Our mental health takes a toll, through it all. To be honest, I have felt a loss of my own identity in the post-graduate world, a longing to see and interact with my peers on a daily basis, and a post-graduate world depression. My whole entire life, I have been going from classroom to classroom, assignment to assignment, report card to report card, and semester to semester. In between it all, I attended social to social, committee to committee, meeting to meeting, and event to event. And, then, I did it all again. My life has REVOLVED around being in a classroom setting all of my life. None of that classroom structure is there. It isn’t easy being in the post-graduate world when your identity was surrounded by your past school life. Personally, I miss a lot of what college had to offer and I know my college friends do too. It isn’t easy, but none of us are alone either. Remember that.

Although we excitedly put on our caps and gowns, walk across that stage, and receive our degrees, the road after doing so is never easy for anyone. We go through roller coaster rides of excitement, ranging from taking our first vacation when we would have probably been in class to decorating our first-ever apartment in the real world, and sadness, ranging from realizing we’re in fact not in college and living near all of our friends anymore and adulting and everything else. Things haven’t been easy for me, since my college graduation, to say the least (I want to be REAL with y’all!!!), but I do know that for all of us, everything is temporary and that things WILL get better. Do not forget – things WILL get better – though they may seem hard at this very exact moment.

XOXO – Katie <3

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One Year Ago, I Graduated from College

Looking back, my 16 year old self would be sad that I didn’t study and have a career in fashion and currently live in New York City. My 18 year old self would be devastated that I’m currently not in a committed relationship and *surprise* am single AND fabulous. While, my 10 year old self would be thrilled that I have a beautiful closet, a dog, and travel a ton with my best friends. On Instagram (follow me @_thepinkchickadee), I have seen so many influencers share about how their younger selves would view themselves now. I love seeing everyone’s reflections on that, too. Looking back on my life and where I thought I would be at this stage in my life now versus where I actually am are two very different stories. When I graduated from college, it was hard. Despite how hard graduating from college is, I have also adapted and grown personally in ways like never before.

I graduated from college and moved up to Washington, DC within the same weekend, it was a whirlwind of emotions. I essentially went through two big life transitions in the span of less than 48 hours. I came home to my Washington, DC area apartment and was away from all of my friends and family. I had what felt like 1,000’s of boxes filled with my college apartment belongings to unpack and arrange in the way that my own heart desired. At the same time, I also had a lot of emotions to unpack when it came to processing with my post-graduation transition emotions. I felt this deep feeling of sadness when I first graduated. It lasted for a year. I never knew just why I had felt uber sad all the time, but I did. It wasn’t until about a year later that I realized what I was feeling was grief that had yet to be processed.

After college, things change a lot, especially within the first year. When I graduated in May 2021, things were still in that COVID-19 mindset more so than they are now. I didn’t travel much the first summer after and I had moved into a place without many friends and spent a lot of time on my own not really doing much. I missed my friends from Meredith College and talked to them about every single moment of every single day. I held onto as much as I could of my college life. It went away and I moved on, though. Some of my college friends I have grown apart from and others I have grown closer to – its like a juxtaposition. It’s also a gift in a way.

Last weekend, I went to Meredith College’s graduation on campus for the Class of 2022, as my best friend Hannah graduated. It was super bittersweet and heartwarming to be back on my sweet campus that I call Wonderland. I loved getting to see some of my former professors and my Academic Advisor. I also loved getting to see friends from both the Class of 2022, fellow Class of 2021 and 2020 alums and even a few friends from the Class of 2023 and 2024. Though it was a great time to be back on sweet Meredith College grounds, I also felt as if I was beyond the Meredith College life. I loved my time at Meredith College and miss my time there dearly, but it is not where I feel I am meant to be right now as I have moved beyond my college years.

At my best friend Hannah’s Graduation party this past weekend, a lot of my friends and I discussed the things we miss and don’t miss about college life. A lot of what we missed was having all of our friends living within close proximity to us. The more than weekly dinner parties, socials, outings, and everything in between. Not to mention, we all miss having a lot of big events which are known at Meredith College as “Traditions” that we would all get super dolled up for and have wayyyy too many photo sessions. Many of us also wished we could do all of our college experiences again for the many memories that we made. At the same time, we miss living closer to one another. When people asked me how I like Washington, DC, to be honest I love where I live and do not envision myself moving back to the South at any point in time. BUT, I also miss the social life and college world a bit too – the socials that were always never-ending, the people, the professors, and the community. Socials in the post graduation world are a lot more sparse and a lot of folks that I befriended during college do not live near me. I miss it all. Though, even a year after my college graduation, I still haven’t found my community here in Washington, DC. As for what I don’t miss about college, I do not miss the consistently growing pile of schoolwork, the social drama, and the Southern way of life. The South is very very different from the North – people get into committed relationships a lot faster and it’s still extremely traditional and has been for decades in terms of its cultures and values, unlike the North. It was super duper nice to know that my friends and community from Meredith College who are also recent college graduates feel the same exact way that I do. This past weekend was needed for me, it included lots of deep conversations that were nothing other than relatable and raw. It was beautiful and perfectly the way it was meant to be for us all – needed. I am not alone and none of us are either.

There are both good things and bad things about college life and the post-graduation life. Neither is perfect. But, what I do know is that I am where I am meant to be right now in my life. As I travelled back to Washington, DC from Raleigh, North Carolina this past weekend in my little white Volvo Sedan, I spent a ton of time reflecting on the good that is to come. College days may be a distant memory for me, but my life is now just beginning. There is much to come for me and for my fellow recent college graduates in this world, too. The first few years are HARD for all of us after college and even high school (depending on the path you choose to take after high school). Entering the real world is NOT easy, and I wanted to share a peek into the raw and real side of it all – not just the pretty little pictures seen all over everyone’s social media. However, there is always good to come. As my friend Aspen and I were talking at Hannah’s Graduation party this past weekend, we both emphasized how we WILL be better off just the way we are and in stages within our lives. Things work out in the end and they always do the way they are meant to. We just have to look to the bright future ahead!

XOXO – Katie <3

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