When Post-Grad Life isn't Working Out: Real life advice from real life graduates

Every year when the weather turns cold, an amorphous monster devours millions of bright-eyed, unsuspecting college graduates around the world. The monster's name roughly translates to "reality," and this year, it may just come for YOU.

It’s true. Recent college grads everywhere woke up this morning to the snarling, hideous face of the real world. 

Instead of jumping out of bed to a diem waiting to be carped, they were pounded awake to the tune of a 5 a.m. alarm clock and dragged out to an apartment that doesn’t feel like home, a box of Frosted Flakes and a pair of wrinkled khakis on the floor. 

Summer is over for these victims and the exciting novelty of new circumstances are quickly wearing off while loneliness, fear and feelings of failure are taking its place.

For many, their lives are a far cry from the daydreams of fortune and fulfillment they had in Spanish class last semester, and they are starting to wonder if that old guy who spoke at commencement was full of it. 

I know all this because I’m one of them. It feels as if adulthood wined and dined me during college, then after graduation it drove me to the desert and left me with nothing but a business suit and a rent notice stapled to my forehead.

I’ve realized that I’m not the only one who feels this way, though. Most of my graduate friends say the same things. Moving from college to adulthood is just a tough adjustment.

This reality check may seem trivial, but the post-graduate struggle is very real and very widespread. Many people are so far removed from school or college that they forget what a drastic life change it is to transition from it. 

We move from a place we called home to a place where we aren’t sure who to call when our car breaks down. We go from having a university full of peers to about zero friends almost overnight. We come from the mountain-top experience of conquering college to the humbling experience of asking for help with the copy machine.

It is an unexpectedly sobering time of life, but I believe it can be redeemed with a little help and encouragement. That’s why I contacted a slew of recent college graduates who are currently learning to navigate this newness, because no one can sympathize and encourage like someone who is going through it right now. Together we created a list of seven insights and lessons learned. 

1.     Have reasonable expectations

“I wish someone had told me how hard this was going to be.” – Justin, Lexington, KY

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this phrase. Many of us had grandiose visions of life beyond graduation perpetuated by ignorance and a growing distaste for studying, but those visions were not exactly what we encountered.

I think much of our struggle stems from these extravagant expectations. We rolled up to the real world expecting to crush it from day one and were surprised when that didn’t happen. Most of us now are retreating and licking our wounds.

We are beginning to realize it’s probably alright not to be the CEO after five weeks on the job. When we give ourselves permission to fail and grow, our contentment will grow as well.

2.     College isn’t coming back

“College is over. Moving back to that area would still be different than actually being in school.” – Seth, Knoxville, TN

I remember walking through the quad one day last year. Smiling sunbathers littered the grass, slacklines supported balancing hippies and flocks of frisbees flew like birds returning for spring. It was a college brochure kind of day. But I strolled down the sidewalk that afternoon after five years of grueling undergrad and thought, “Wow, I hate this place.”

These days, many of us would give our next meager paycheck to fly back into that college brochure. Life is just harder now, and it is so easy to daydream about taking out another student loan to get a second degree in badminton studies.

My friends and I have talked wistfully about moving back to our college town, finding jobs and picking up life where we left off, but after hours of dreaming and planning, what we realized is that we want school back, not the town itself. We want to do homework instead of real work. We want to go back to a life of late nights and limited responsibility.

But that isn’t going to happen. We graduated, and college isn’t coming back. The sooner we realize that life is irreversibly different, the sooner we will accept and enjoy those different circumstances we find ourselves in.

3.     Embrace the loneliness

“I think this ‘transition phase’ is meant to be hard, whether that is to bring things to the surface in my own life or teach me to be less dependent on others and more dependent on God.” – Deric, Nashville, TN

Community was sometimes frustratingly inescapable in college. Now, it seems as rare and elusive as a compliment from our boss.

Here is one thing my friends and I have discovered; post-graduate life is inherently less relational than college life, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. We are going to be a little lonely at times, but it can be beneficial to embrace that loneliness rather than run from it.

These new feelings of isolation can serve to drive us away from unhealthy dependency on others and toward dependency on God, instead. They also can give us a clearer understanding of ourselves. The constant distractions of college life were fun, but they also could hinder us from evolving as people. Even Jesus intentionally isolated Himself sometimes to reorient and commune with the Father, so maybe we shouldn’t avoid loneliness like it’s cafeteria meatloaf.

4.     Fight for community

“When I moved and realized close relationships don’t grow on trees like they did in undergrad, I discovered I had to take initiative and fight for new connections. That was a big adjustment, though.” – Josh, Lexington, KY

As wonderful as crushing loneliness can be, we are still relational beings built for community. These two things don’t need to be mutually exclusive. We can embrace a more isolated life while still seeking connections with others.

We must be more proactive in our search for community than we were in college, though. We can’t sit around our apartment watching Stranger Things and somehow fall off the couch into community. We must go out and find it.

Maybe that means going out after work with coworkers. Maybe it means joining a small group. Maybe it just means watching Stranger Things at a coffee shop instead of our bedrooms. 

We have to quit sulking and go meet people. We will never have community if we don’t get out there and fight for it.

5.     Focus on the good stuff

“It's easy to focus on the negatives of the situation, but the Lord has been teaching me to keep my eyes on Him and much of that is seeing Him work in the little things.” – Seth, Knoxville, TN

Maybe your apartment is tiny and cramped, but you have an enjoyable roommate. Maybe your job isn’t exactly what you hoped for, but it provides a little money to splurge on fancy ice cream sometimes. Maybe your commute takes forever, but your favorite band released an album this week and you can’t wait to listen to it in traffic.

Or maybe you are just blessed with the unending grace of God. That’s enough to rejoice about for three or four lifetimes, I think.

No matter how seemingly abominable our post-graduate situations are, choose to focus on the good stuff, not the bad stuff. We will be much more content because of it.

6.     Don’t wish it away

“I'm trying to use this time to grow fully into the person God created me to be, not just career-wise but also as a friend and spouse, encourager and do-gooder. I'm in this time of transition, and I want to use it to the fullest.” – Abby, Nashville, TN

It is easy for us to look beyond this time in our lives and wish for something different. A mortgage and two and a half snotty-nosed kids have never seemed so desirable, but simply waiting for time to pass negates everything God is doing in our lives right now.

His mercies are new every morning, but they grow old and die every night. Newer mercies will always replace the dead ones, but we can’t resurrect those we failed to enjoy in the moment.

He blesses us with each new day to enjoy Him. And when that day is gone it is gone forever. He already gave us childhood and college. He may one day give us that promotion and a family. But right now, He gives us today. Don’t wish it away.

7.     Know that we aren’t alone

“Everywhere I look, there are people in the same boat as me. And when we're all real about what we're feeling, it can be so comforting.” – Grace, Nashville, TN

1 Peter 5:9 says to stand “firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” 

I don’t think 1 Peter was written as a commencement speech, but I do have the audacity to claim our situation as suffering. However real the misery is, though, we can take solace in the company. And look no further than this article to see a community of people struggling along with us.

This article was meant to provide insights and life lessons from peers. But more than that we wanted to create a sense of community. This was informed by the experience of about twenty college graduates struggling with the real world, and there are about two million more I didn’t interview who would say the same things. 

So be encouraged. We aren’t alone in this. People just like us are navigating this monstrous real world for the first time. And when we realize that countless grads are overcoming this transition together, the monster becomes much less scary.