Since it’s graduation season and all, I figured it would be appropriate to list some things to do after graduating. No worries undergrads, most of these things can apply to you too! It’s basically things to do after a year of college. The first couple of weeks after leaving school are usually rough because you have to adjust to a new routine all over again. You’re not with your friends, you’re probably back at home, and you don’t have super bar specials to entertain you every night.

Here are some crucial things to do right after you graduate or leave school for the year…

Read More »

Isn’t that a scary thing? The “Real World”. And no, I’m not talking about the television show, although they did hold a casting in Tuscaloosa that I almost went to. I, like many of you, graduated this past weekend. Some of you have another week or two left, some of you will graduate in August or December. I was fortunate enough to finish in four years (read: the parentals said you get four years) but I tell you, I wish it wasn’t over.

I’m truly excited to start the next chapter of my life, it’s just so strange that it happened so quickly. I remember being a tiny freshman at this huge university and not knowing what to do with myself. Let me tell you all a little bit about my experience at Alabama. Read More »

My Facebook news feed is full of statuses about finishing finals and graduating. “Omg, last paper EVER!” “I’m done I’m done I’m done I’m done!!!!” “Graduating in THREE DAYS.”

To those people, I would like to say: congratulations. But I hate you right now. Because I still have a week of finals left, and I’m only a junior! So I’ll be doing this all over again next year. But really, seniors, congrats. You get to go out into the world and be real people! It’s so exciting. And to send you off in style, our friends over at College Fashion have put together some great tips on what to wear for graduation. Check out the post here, and enjoy your commencement ceremonies in style!

[Lead image via Stephen Coburn/Shutterstock]

I used to be a college tour guide, in which I told prospective students that they could choose from over 150 different majors at my school. Apparently, 13 or so of them are completely useless — including mine. How about yours? Is your entire collegiate career a sham of actual productivity?

Earlier this week, The Daily Beast had the nerve to publish a list that finally identifies the thirteen most useless majors that college students call their own too often. The lucky thirteen was based on the undoubtedly truthful practices of science and statistics:

“This year we started with new research (PDF) from Georgetown University — which drew from two years of census data to determine the prospects for myriad majors — to narrow down our list to more than three dozen popular college majors. We also used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, equally weighing the following categories to determine current and future employment and earnings potential for our final ranking: Recent graduate employment, experienced graduate employment, recent graduate earnings, experienced graduate earnings, [and] projected growth in total number of jobs, 2010–2020.”

So basically, these were selected from the most popular majors in college, and then deemed “useless” when measuring how much money they haven’t earned past graduates and how many of them are still looking for jobs altogether. More importantly, these supposedly breakthrough findings are based on data collected over the past two years — you know, two of the bleakest years that our country has seen for quite a long time now.

And of course, which industries take a heavy blow throughout an economic recession? Without even looking at the list of overwhelming university uselessness just yet, it’s easy to guess that the liberal arts are, once again, deemed unfit for the blessed brains of science, math, engineering, etc.

I once defended all liberal arts majors on CollegeCandy, and I’ll do it again if I have to. I could continue my rant about how careers in the liberal arts aren’t as clear-cut as those in science-related fields, and I’d reiterate how so many people — more people than we think — don’t necessarily pursue careers in the fields they initially chose when they were 18-year-old freshmen in college. Because 18-year-olds don’t always make good decisions, and neither do 22-year-old graduates who are still somewhat confused by the direction of the rest of their lives, as well as 50-year-olds who undergo a career change after they’re flat-out disappointed in whatever they eventually chose to pursue.

However, I think it’s more important here to see how inaccurate the definitions of “useful” and “useless” are in this list’s context. These majors’ “uselessness” doesn’t matter at all because the definition of “usefulness” does not capture personal happiness, worldwide impact or cultural contribution — it only measures how fast YOU can pay off YOUR student loans by getting a high-paying job after graduation. But honestly, getting your money’s worth from a major and actually doing something useful with it are two different things. The nurse who majored in biology and spent a decade weighing patients on scales and measuring people’s blood pressure may not be as useful as the filmmaker who exposed an injustice through a documentary. Who has a bigger impact on the world? Who can be called more useful?

Even more so, “useful” majors would be nothing without the “useless” ones — what industry can function without artists to create advertising or language majors to publicize it…or even write a manual for that fancy scientific invention? And what will all those useful people do with their free time, if not veg out in front of the television, watch movies, listen to music, read the news, or enjoy some other product from a liberal arts major? Sure, science may save lives, but art makes life worth living.

See for yourself how “useless” the following 13 majors are, and how messed up our world would be if bright minds like us stopped majoring in them:

initiating the gallery...

Are there certain college majors that are more useless than others? Or does its “usefulness” really depend on what is done with it after graduation?

Ashley is a UC San Diego grad who is holding on way too tightly to a potential career in magazines and goes to Vegas all too often. She’s fascinated with celebrities and strawberry beer and doubles as a pathological texter/emailer/blogger. Feed the addiction with tweets @cashleelee. Thanks in advance.

The school year is almost over, and many of you may be graduating! At this exciting time in your life, you have lots of things to focus on — one of the most important being, of course, what you want as your graduation gift.

I’ve heard of lots of different types of graduation gifts, including trips, cars, new computers, housewares and furniture for your new apartment, suits for interviews and more. And while all of those things are great, let’s be honest. When it really comes down to it, there’s one thing that all of us want more than any iPad or trip to Europe — just old fashioned cash. Because if you had a bit of money, you’d be able to cover your first few rent checks or student loan bills and possibly still have enough leftover to buy a little somethin’ somethin’ for yourself. Read More »

Every day, I feel like I need to find SOMETHING to look forward to in order to get me through a long class or to motivate me to finish a 10-page paper. While I’m no celeb and can’t look forward to a Grammy after party or a five-course meal by a celebrity chef, I am a college student.

College students have pretty awesome lifestyles, and we have a lot of stuff to look forward to during the day, week or year. If you’re having a bad day and need some motivation, look forward to this: Read More »

In less than a month, I will be a college graduate. It seems like four days ago rather than four years ago that I went to my college’s orientation and had a panic attack about picking my major. Now I have panic attacks every day about my impending graduation/real world life.

There are so many things about graduating that scare me. I feel like there are a lot of adult things that I don’t know about yet that I will automatically need to know about right when I walk across the stage.

Can someone please teach me about this stuff in a month? Pretty please? Read More »

I’m a junior in college, and I’m getting really, really antsy to graduate. I didn’t think I would get sick of college, because there are so many things I love about it. But the student life is getting old. I want to be a real person with a real job! I want to get home from work and be done for the day, no homework! I want to have time on the weekends!

But I think that sometimes I get carried away imagining my glamorous post-grad life. In reality, graduation can be a really humbling experience. I’ve always had lots of older friends, and I’ve watched some of them go through some difficult (but hilarious) times after graduation. So to remind us all that things don’t always go as planned, I present Expectation vs. Reality: Graduation Edition.

initiating the gallery...

Garnet is a student at Columbia University in New York City. She is “that person” who starts dancing at a party when everyone else is standing around, and if there were a Facebook stalking Olympics, she would be a gold medalist. She also loves cheesy 90s music, and almost died of happiness when Vanilla Ice retweeted her. Once. Follow her on Twitter @garnethenderson.

[Lead image via unguryanu/Shutterstock]

The senior year of college is an emotional roller coaster that you can’t get off of until you cross the stage at graduation. (Then you enter another ride called life and I just haven’t been on that ride long enough to give you the appropriate theme park metaphor…my apologies.) As much as you love your friends and your school and your classes, you’re also freaking out about what you want to do after college and if what you want to do is right. And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably suffering from a killer case of the “what-ifs”.

What if I go to grad school?

What if I move to NYC without a job?

What if my boyfriend breaks up with me?

The what-ifs are never-ending and you’ll find them creeping up during class, while you’re at happy hour and  even while you’re hooking up. It’s a nasty sickness that’s hard to cure. Luckily CollegeFashion has a handy dandy guide to figuring it all out. Check it out here!

I got an email a few weeks ago explaining that we needed to apply for graduation before registering for the next semester. Um, what?! I don’t even know what classes I’m taking yet, and I already have to apply to graduate? Well, I did apply. And got a degree audit. And picked my final semester’s classes. Talk about scary. Thank goodness I’m not graduating in December like a lot of my friends because I still don’t even know what I want to do!

Let the freaking out about commencement commence.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited to start my life in the “real world.” I imagine myself living somewhere amazing with cute decor and my dog, strutting down to the local coffee shop every morning where the hot barista will know my order and eventually write his number on my latte. A girl can dream, right? But I know that’s not the reality. I’m going to get a job, find a place that will need a lot of touching up and probably doesn’t have a doorman. I’ll work long hours and sleep less than I do now in college. I know all of that, the reality. But that’s not why I’m scared.

Read More »