There’s no peace quite like the first few days after graduation. You’ll delete the Brightspace app. You’ll start eating vegetables again. The sun shines a little brighter when you aren’t living in the basement of the A&A.
Welcome to the GPA-less world of post-graduation. We’ve been waiting for you. Here are a few tips for surviving a world post-King’s undergrad.
Talk to the Advancement Office.
As a new King’s grad, you can reach out to on-campus services for advice post-graduation. Make use of them. The Advancement Office encourages graduates to check out the Ask An Alum page on the King’s website.
Learn the art of the “coffee chat.”
Talk to older grads. Nick Harris, who graduated in 2022, says to get comfortable networking with people over coffee. Harris says people “always make the time for young people who want to make a difference in their own respective fields.”
Harris wants new grads to know that “[graduating] feels like you’re about to jump off a cliff… And sometimes, it’s important just to make that jump and enjoy the fall.”
So, if there’s someone you admire, shoot your shot.
Get off the peninsula.
Take a day trip to Tatamagouche just to say you did it. Eat a humble pie and apologize for making fun of your friends who commuted from Dartmouth — it’s actually kind of nice there. Do whatever it is you do in Bedford. You won’t fall off the map if you venture past North Street.
Stop calling yourself a student.
No, seriously. Who are you without school? Fill your time with something that isn’t a research paper. Fix your sleep schedule. Remember, most workplaces don’t have reading week. (They call that “paid time off,” or if your parents paid your rent, “golfing.”)
If all else fails, (don’t) go to grad school.
In a last-minute decision, days before the deadline, I submitted my application for the one-year journalism degree. I don’t regret it. But if you’re going back to the classroom, ask yourself if it’s because you care about your area of study or because you don’t know what else to do. It’s hard to complete a master’s thesis when you don’t know why you’re there in the first place.
Get excited.
Graduation is not the conclusion to the best years of your life (and if it is, you have some reflecting to do). Do you remember how terrifying this place was on the first day? It’s not so bad anymore.
You’ve already navigated uncharted waters and come out smarter, tougher, and maybe hotter. What’s a little more? There’s a huge world out there, and it’s waiting to eat you alive. Revel in it.
Best of luck. See you out there.
