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 »