As finals start to wind down and graduation looms closer most graduates will be reminiscing about the memories they had with their besties. The late night chats, the embarrassing moments, the day you met freshman year as you walked in a giant mass of people to the nearest frat party. But those girls and guys aren’t the only ones you’ll have to say goodbye to come graduation day; there’s also all those randoms you’ve met along the way that added a little spice to your college career.

The ones you see daily but NEVER talk to.
The ones that you share awkward smiles with when you see people take a tumble on an icy street.
The boy from your intro to Anthropology class that giggled with you whenever your teacher unintentionally said something funny.

These are the people you have taken for granted for the past four years and soon they’ll be out of your life forever. When you think about it – it being the fact that you have met so many people that you’ll never see again – it’s weird, right? So let’s take a moment to reflect on these randoms and give them the goodbye they deserve: Read More »

It’s almost the end of the school year and for those unfortunate seniors out there, it may also be the end of college. (Wah Wah) The second most asked question (right after “what are you doing to do after you graduate?”), will be “what do you want for your graduation gift?” While my wise brother always claims that cash is king, the older generation often wants to give you something more tangible as a gift.

So here’s a list of things you should ask for so you don’t end up with five copies of Oh the Places You’ll Go:

I'm a big kid now!

I’ve spent my entire life blaming other things for my misdoings.

I ate your entire loaf of Cottage Bread last night while making toast on the George Foreman?  I blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol.  I cried during every scene of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?  I blame it on my intense emotional monthly girly pains. I was pulled over doing 58 in a 40 on my way home from work?  I blame it on my lead foot and my dire need to catch the last five minutes of Glee.  I got in an argument with my man-friend in front of a breakfast buffet at a hotel downtown at 6:30 a.m…. in front of an innocent family? Totally his fault.

The sad thing about the entire previous paragraph is the fact that all of the things above actually happened to me in the last week. I promise, I’m a grown up graduate!

Anyway, after reading that embarrassing list of faux pas, I’ve reached a revelation in my life: taking responsibility for my actions. I need to stop passing blame on others/alcohol/my emotions and finally take the blame for myself. This seems like a simple philosophy; didn’t I learn that in daycare fifteen years ago when I learned I was falling off the slide because I wasn’t, in fact, Wonderwoman?

The thing is, I’ve finally discovered that responsibility is more than just having it.  While I should be responsible, I need to learn to step forward and take responsibility for things I do. I mean, looking back, my man-friend did not deserve my rapid arm gestures that nearly knocked over the dry croissants at the hotel breakfast buffet the other morning. Read More »

Balance is really a simple science: if you have a scale and you put a brick on one side and a feather on the other, the brick is hitting the floor. I learned that lesson long ago and try to apply it in my everyday life, even when I’m making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; if I don’t spread my peanut butter evenly enough on my piece of bread, and lay it on too thick on one end, I can barely get through it without gagging or being completely repulsed by its sticky and overwhelming existence.

But let’s talk about balance in my real life, yes? I mean, I could talk about peanut butter and jelly for days but in this case, the peanut butter is me and I’m just trying to spread myself evenly against the Wonderbread of life. Whoa, did I just go there? Yup, I did. I compared my life to PB&J. And I’m totally OK with that.

Lately, I’ll be honest, I’ve been finding it excruciatingly difficult to balance my personal life and spread myself evenly across everything I feel I need to do. I understand I can’t be good at everything (I learned that when I auditioned for choir….), but when it comes to balancing what’s important in my post-grad life, do I have to have to pick only one of the five things I want to excel in? Read More »

The word of life the day is: mistake.

I come face to face with mistakes more than I’d like to admit.  In fact, they stalk my life worse than anything DJ Pauly D has ever encountered on The Shore. Today, I made the mistake of eating five chocolate dipped macaroons before going on an impromptu run outside. Let’s just say I haven’t felt a stomach cramp like that since, well, ever. And the other day,  I drank coffee after 3 P.M., unaware that I have the same internal workings as an 80-year-old woman.  I couldn’t fall asleep for days.  Not to mention, I had terrible heartburn.

But my mistakes don’t only involve internal bodily harm. The truth is, lately I’ve been behaving in weird, mysterious and dumb ways. I’ve partied on the occasional weekday. I went running back to a guy that didn’t deserve even the time it takes to bat an eyelash in his direction. I stopped working out because I thought eating less would make me happier.

Mistake, mistake, big (literally) mistake.

And while these self-inflicted issues continue to frolic my way, I always have that small glitter of reassurance. Reassurance in knowing that (even though I’ve learned the hard way), I’ll never do it again.  Hands on experiences and mistakes are always the best, right?  Once I learn the hard way, I learn. I learn to never make the same mistake twice. Right?

Wait, why is no one answering me?
Hello?
Bueller?
Am I right?!

I’m wrong. Read More »

To be honest, I don’t remember much from reading Charles Dickens’ book Great Expectations when I was in seventh grade, but I do remember being extremely scared. Seriously, that book gave me nightmares.  Was there a cemetery in the plot? Did someone abduct somebody? Did it even have anything to do with having ‘expectations?’ Or was that just a clever title twist in a book full of freaky shiz?  (Sidenote: Wow, I didn’t learn anything in seventh grade. How did I even get to college in the first place? Whatever, I’m going somewhere with this, I swear.)

Regardless of my lack of 7th grade education, this book landed softly in my mind recently and I got to thinking about expectations. In my life, I have an expectation timeline that goes a little something like this: With any given situation, my expectations are minimal during the beginning.  Once the situation hits halfway, my expectations usually skyrocket.  Take a relationship for example.  When I start talking to a guy I’m interested in I don’t expect a lot; I have fun, play carefree, play coy.  But once he starts to impress me and things progress, my expectations hit levels people could be offended by.  Suddenly, I’m waiting on him to kiss my feet and feed me mini chocolate chips and peanut butter with a baby spoon (What? Only my fantasy?) And the same story is true for all aspects of my life.

Except, since graduating college, my personal expectations have turned backwards. That’s right – as a post-grad, I expect too much out of every beginning.  I squeeze the shiz out of the orange before I can have a taste.  It’s awful.  I used to gain expectations through experience and now I have a ton of expectations before the experience.  Result:  I’m always disappointed. Read More »

I knew things were going to be different after graduation.  I graduated high school and shiz did not go down in college like it did in high school funky town.  Like any transition in life,  things change.  And with change, I am suddenly given the chance to look back in my life rear view mirror, appreciate what’s been left in my past and look forward to the brand new things that are coming in my future.

Like any college girl, the only thing I could think about upon graduating was how I wouldn’t be able to wear sweatpants to buy Arizona Green Tea at the gas station at 2 P.M. on a Tuesday afternoon.  I knew I was going to miss spending entire days sprawled out on my futon, watching Grey’s Anatomy re-runs and ordering Jimmy Johns for my mid-afternoon snack. My college siesta hour(s) – every day from 2-4 – would no longer be there for me to utilize. And that is something I’ve missed.

I’ve also missed going to the caf with all of my girlfriends on Sunday morning to discuss the weekend’s events over soggy toast and cheesy eggs.  I’ve missed when spring finally came and all of the boys on campus would showcase their forearms, and that bubbly feeling inside me that came from knowing that in just a few more degrees, they would be drinking Coors in their backyard. Shirtless. Read More »

The following post is written by Josh Olson from UNC, one of our many friends at Uloop, a student powered marketplace. Read more great posts in their blog.

I once heard a story from the time of the Dot Com boom about young computer science majors, fresh out of college, who sat around their phones taking calls from giant conglomerates. The conglomerates and corporations would offer them six-figure salaries. And the programmers, for fun, would reply with words like, “$300,000? Frankly, I’m insulted” and then hang up with a bang, knowing that half-a-dozen more calls would come.

These may not be quite as heady times as those were. But the tech industry is still where most of the available jobs are. This becomes important as we are coming out of a Great Recession. So here are six reasons to consider getting a job in tech (even if you’re not a techie).

1. Supply and demand.

The Tech industry is one of the only industries with more demand for labor than there is supply. While the unemployment rate dances between nine and ten percent and companies everywhere are figuring out how to do more work with less personnel, the tech industry is currently one of the only industries that is hiring.

2. New markets.

New markets in the tech industry are popping into existence and exploding, like the Big Bang. And, historically, new industries are where people become rich relatively easily. For instance, consider the iPhone (or Droid) app industry: every major company wants an iPhone app; they are willing to pay top dollar; and yet there are not nearly enough programmers who know Objective C (the programming language of the iPhone) to meet the demand. This means that iPhone programmers command huge salaries (see reason 1). Read More »

The following post is written by Josh Olson from UNC, one of our many friends at Uloop, a student powered marketplace. Read more great posts in their blog.

Straight from the dorm onto the street. This might seem to be the fate threatening college students graduating in our current economic doldrums. But there may be hope. There are methods for making yourself more appealing to potential employers. There are ways to manicure your resume; and there’s always the internship option. But you already knew that.

Here are some somewhat less conventional ways to avoid those unemployment lines after graduation. Read More »

In my senior year I made a drastic decision, dropping out of my double major of Journalism and Writing Intensive English, quitting my job on the school newspaper, and deciding to not go to grad school the next fall. I needed something different. Something that made me excited, instead of making me dread the next step in my life.

My parents were less than thrilled with my decision. I had such a promising path! How could I just give up on everything I’ve worked for?! Like everyone else in my family, they didn’t understand why I started applying for Teach for America and researching programs for teaching English overseas.  They were constantly questioning me (“What are you going to do once you graduate?” and “What are you going to be when you grow up?”) but I honestly had no idea and I didn’t want to jump into a graduate program and spend all that time and money when I couldn’t answer those most basic questions.

So I researched. And researched some more. And along the way, I started reading blogs about volunteering after college and found myself intrigued. Volunteering was something I did infrequently in college and when I did, it was either for a class I was taking or part of my job. So I took the plunge and became an AmeriCorps*VISTA when I graduated in May.

I had a cousin who did AmeriCorps*VISTA several years ago and he suggested that I look into it.  When I started my research I felt a connection to what VISTA stands for: Volunteers In Service To America.  VISTAs are different from other volunteers because we work the administration side of different nonprofits or government agencies that fight against poverty. In return for our work, we do not receive an income but a living stipend (which ironically puts us on the same level of those we serve: poverty). Read More »