After the novelty of college graduation (and all the great gifts that came with it) wore off, I spent a year crying myself to sleep. And I’m not exaggerating. While being done with school after 16 years was pretty liberating, not knowing what was coming next scared the sh*t out of me. And the fact that no one ever warned me how difficult being an adult would be made things a whole lot harder.

I went through a lot that first year – looking for a job, moving to a new city, ending a long relationship, and learning how to care for myself, to name a few – all by myself and now feel that I have the experience and knowledge to advise others on the transition. Because it’s a hard one and every college grad should know that they are not alone. Come back every week for another nugget of information to help you survive in the big, bad world.

The hardest part of graduating college is not the fact that your friends are now spread all over the country. It is not the fact that you can no longer party 6 nights a week with $1 pitchers. It isn’t even the whole “getting a job” thing (even now).

The hardest part is having no freaking clue how to do anything. Read More »

This past Sunday was by far the most stressful night of my entire life. Not only was Desperate Housewives new for the first time in months, but Melissa Joan Hart’s movie was premiering and the Natalie Holloway story was airing. Now I’m not a mathematician or even a biochemical engineer, so figuring out how to schedule all these things onto my DVR within the same two hour period was quite the challenge. But after a half hour of concentration (and realizing MJH’s movie My Fake Fiance runs back-to-back for four days) I figured it out.

I  had assumed that I would watch the Natalie Holloway movie and My Fake Fiance in private while my roommates were at class so I wouldn’t have to hear them make fun of me for days on end (I’ve spent the entire year pretending not to know that we have Lifetime Movie Network). But then someone threw a joking reference out about My Fake Fiance and I latched on. It’s not that either of us thought it would be anywhere near good, but we both knew that it was going to be so bad that it would be hilarious. And then, like a gift from heaven, another friend wanted to watch the Natalie Holloway story. And before I knew it, there were 5.5 (the .5 is for the neighbor that got stuck watching but didn’t appreciate it for the art that it was) of us sitting around watching this marathon of horrible-yet-addicting TV. Read More »

I spend 83% of my day deleting e-mails from my career center. It seems they spend 100% of their day sending out e-mails with job tips, career fair, and networking seminars. Every time I report one as spam, five more pop up in its place.

And the most frustrating thing is that their language is all so misleading.

Job Hunting makes the process sound so adventurous. I’m immediately thinking back to shooting oxen (too many pounds to carry back!) on the Oregon Trail. Instead it’s scrolling through databases and filling out applications. I went to the resume building workshop. I assumed that we would be physically stacking up our resumes to build some sort of post-modern card house that would look awesome while also giving some insight into resume writing. Instead, it’s listening to all the things I should have on my resume instead of babysitting jobs from the 7th grade. Read More »

Questiony for Tuffy? Email her at tuffylove@collegecandy.com to be featured in her column, which runs every other Tuesday! ASK. ANYTHING.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

I’m graduating from a small liberal arts college in May and I’m starting to get realllllly nervous about job hunting. Everyone says this is a terrible time to start looking for a job. What am I supposed to do?????????

Thanks for your help!

Terrified Senior

Dear Senorita Senior,

Honey, boy do I feel your pain. You think there’s a lotta work out there for stylized advice columnists? Hint: There ain’t.

The economy here in the US definitely sucks right now. As of December, the unemployment rate was up to a very frightening 7.2%. But, listen. Tuffy’s got a few tricks up her sleeve for you. And it’s a very large sleeve. Bell, maybe. Or perhaps kimono. Read More »

You do it every year without fail. There’s a string of weeks where you’re nice and organized with all your notes in the right folders, laundry done as soon as you’re running low on undies and putting everything where it belongs. And then, you forget your planner and decide you don’t feel like really carrying it, or you’re too tired to do that load of laundry…

Okay, it might not happen to you, but it happens to me.

Barely two weeks into the semester, and my room is still pretty navigatable, but far from clean. I can’t see the desk calendar where I put all of my due dates and meetings down anymore. I just don’t have the patience to be neat. I’m sure it’s a problem – I’ve been messy all my life – but I don’t really feel like fixing it. Read More »

I’m a hard worker and always have been. I started working when I was 14; I printed out cheap flyers advertising my babysitting capabilities and threw them in every mailbox in my town. I had my own little babysitting gigs and was doing quite well for myself; at $4.25 an hour, I thought I was making the big bucks.

As I grew older, I expanded my professional resume with retail positions, internships and jobs geared towards my career interests. I came out of college and now have a full-time job (and this super fun writing gig to keep me sane on the side) and am working towards getting the things I want for myself in life.

I consider myself – and many women just like me – to be a part of something new: the New Generation of 20-Something Women. No more relying on a man to determine financial status, stability or success; we are independent and have our own individual goals. Our own plans. Our fate in our hands.

Growing up, I learned that if you want something, you need to rely on yourself to get it and not someone else. I am taking that theory into account and notice that more females these days are too. Years ago, women were expected to find a man, get married, have children and keep the household. Rather than growing up and looking for our Mrs., 20-something women today are looking for a job, life experiences, travel and, most importantly, a life for themselves. Read More »

It’s difficult enough entering into the real world without having to worry about paying back thousands upon thousands of dollars in student loans in the years after we graduate. It’s best to think of that money as an investment more than an evil, insurmountable debt that is going to be attached to our backs for years. But there are some options to lessen that weight in the forms of loan forgiveness.

If you aren’t familiar with the process, loan forgiveness is the cancellation of all or part of your student loans if you decide to go into certain charitable fields for a certain amount of time. Below is a list of some areas that offer loan forgiveness, but it’s not comprehensive. In fact, if you go into some sort of public service upon graduation, it wouldn’t hurt to consult the Human Resources department to see if your job qualifies for the program. Also, the military offers numerous loan repayment programs.

Volunteering

Americorps A year of service gets you up to a $7400 stipend and around $4500 to use against a loan.

Peace Corps Volunteers can get a loan deferment and up to 70% loan cancellation. Read More »

Around this time of year, colleges all across the country have that famous last hurrah party. A school chum of mine actually just called and informed me that tonight is my alama matter’s big Courtyard Party — which is basically a night dedicated to getting wasted and grabbing people you haven’t talked to for four years and tearfully telling them how much you’re going to totally miss them.

If I remember correctly (and I drank a LOT of PBR that night, so I can’t be sure), my last hurrah party experience was dedicated to finding a cute hippie I had loved in vain for two years and attempting to tell him how much my heart overflowed whenever he was near.

He was even drunker than I was and so it didn’t work out. But man, did I give it my all.

As did the student body at Wesleyan University a few nights ago. According to a liveblog dedicated to a last hurrah party at the University, cops and dogs and riot gear were totally cramping students’ style as they attempted to party four years away.

“Dogs barking, megaphone order to disperse. Mace brandished. General Disarray. Continued bustle of people. Read More »

Girls, hang on to your purses, it looks like we’ve finally surpassed the men when it comes to salary—at least in a few big cities.

The New York Times recently reported that in New York City, full time working women aged 21 to 30 made 117 percent of men’s wages. They made even more than that in Dallas, at 120 percent.

Once the survey branched nationwide, however, full time female wages fell back down to 89 percent

Regardless, this new trend is still a good sign, especially to women of older generations who have been fighting the wage battle as long as females were invited into the workforce. Many companies seem to be getting the message that boobs and lipstick don’t equal less skill.

While it’s not entirely clear why women are making more cash in cities like New York and Boston, some experts speculate it could be because women are graduating from college at higher numbers than men, and many of those graduating girls are “gravitating toward major urban areas”. Read More »

I graduate in a couple weeks. Yes, I have come to terms with this and my emotional breakdowns have decreased to only once a week. Instead of wistfully reminiscing about each of my crazy college years and dispensing advice, I am now starting to look to the future as a mature adult…or something like that.

Facebook has been one topic of discussion lately for my graduating peers, and I still have not reached any conclusion yet. After college, is it considered weird to still be on facebook all the time? Should I switch to a more grown-up social networking site? Not that I know of any certain ones that exist, but it seems like the word, facebook, equals college in many minds. Would creating a myspace account take care of this issue? For some reason, myspace makes me think of creepy old men stalking the profiles of thirteen year old girls.

When I really think about deactivating my precious facebook account in hopes of gaining a real life, my heart starts to race and I get nervous that I will lose touch with all of my 508 ‘friends’.

Read More »