BLOG #1
It’s been four months since I graduated from Providence College.
At about this time last year I was moving into my off-campus house getting ready for my senior year. It hasn’t really hit me since this past week. As I am still at home, and all the underclassmen are moving up in the ranks. I graduated.
It’s weird.
Like pit in my stomach weird.
I made some great friends and developed some great relationships with some pretty amazing people and I wouldn’t trade my experience at Providence College for anything.
But, I have graduated. It’s time to actually begin my life. My time is now.
I have been working about 50 hours per week between the Praxis bootcamp and my job at a payroll company. I am gaining some great experience and I am learning a lot already in just the short four months of being thrown into the world.
Although at the same time, I don’t feel like I have actually started. I feel the pressure, the anticipation of being launched into the so called “real world,” that college is “supposed” to prepare you for.
It is all looming over my relocation to my Praxis apprenticeship.
I feel like a cannonball. Getting hotter at the surface, as the uncertainty of my relocation is about to light the wick.
Where am I going to end up in three months?
There has never been a time in my life where I have had to deal with so many unknowns. It’s been stressful. But at the same time, it’s a blessing.
What other time in my life will I have the chance to move to a new city where I don’t know anybody? I am about to step into a world I have never seen before. I think that is exciting, but scary at the same time. I can’t seem to articulate exactly how I feel about it. It’s fresh and spontaneous but also intimidating.
We don’t always have control over where we will end up or what opportunities will arise, so the best thing we can do is work hard and be ready for those unforeseeable opportunities to present themselves.
I look back at my college career and try to think about the value that I got out of going away to school. I believe I have learned more in these four months with Praxis and the payroll company than I did in my last four years in college. Experience is far more valuable than what is offered in a classroom. I am more productive and creative without the crutches of a syllabus.
If I have any advice to a senior in college, it is to differentiate yourself from the majority. Don’t tell yourself that going to a career fair and handing out a stack of resumes to entry level recruiters is networking. Go way bigger than that.
Make a website. Document your work. Try and teach yourself something new and share it with a company you want to work for. Add value to them for free.
No professor, administrator, or adviser is going to tell you that. Your one-sheet resume you wrote for Intro-to-Business class doesn’t mean shit.
Show people what you are capable of. Don’t wait for graduation to get your life into second gear. Start today and make yourself accountable in your own professional development. Think of it as an extra-elective. One hour everyday blocked off. Call it career development 101.
Obviously there are plenty of distractions while you are away at school: Relationships, parties, drinking, no parents. But do yourself a favor. Ask yourself, “How can I differentiate myself?”
Do the work and tell yourself, “I can’t wait for what happens next.”
– Jake Beman