So you’ve graduated college. I’m sure you’re as terrified as you are excited. You also might be reading up on advice from current students, former students, professors and anyone with a blog and a command of the English language. There seems to be a cottage industry of articles and books about how to prepare for college — lots of them are good, but even good things have shitty things. Here are some pieces of advice that I’ve found to be unhelpful, counterproductive or just flat out wrong.
1. Be yourself.
This one isn’t exclusive to college prep advice; those two words manage to show up in every piece of children’s, young adult’s and adult’s fiction in some form or another. It sounds nice, but “yourself” doesn’t exist. Your personality is not a fixed point. To be yourself, you have to define yourself. And if you’re defining yourself, you’re pigeonholing yourself.
Be true and authentic, but don’t keep yourself from growing or changing for the better. If you’re an asshole, don’t be yourself — be someone better. Being aware of your shortcomings is the only way to work past them. Wrapping yourself in a bubble of infallible self-esteem will only hurt you in the end.
2. Go for a practical major.
This one is particularly bad because you’ve probably internalized it over the past few years. With the current financial state of the country and the rapidly rising costs of college, I don’t blame you. College is a gigantic investment, and you want to get the most bang for your buck. But when you go for a major you don’t want to study, there is no end scenario that is good for you.
Maybe you can’t cut it and switch quickly because you don’t care enough about the subject. Maybe you make it a couple years in before you crumble before the higher level classes. Maybe you graduate before figuring out your job market isn’t as good as you thought it might be. Regardless, being in a major you don’t get anything out of is wasting your money, full stop. I wrote more about this here, so take a look.
3. Get involved.
This has to be the vague piece of advice ever given. I agree with the sentiment, but “get involved” doesn’t really mean anything beyond “don’t be a hermit." OK, but what about beyond that?
I took this advice to heart my freshman year. I went to the club fair and signed up for every email list I could. My calendar was filled to the brim with club meetings. I was getting involved, just like I was told. But that didn’t help me feel more like a part of the community. If anything, it discouraged me — if getting involved wasn’t helping me, what was I doing wrong?
My problem was that I was getting involved with things I didn’t care about, keeping me from fully committing to the things I do care about. So instead of getting involved with everything, I focused on getting involved deeply with a few things. Reporter Magazine and Odyssey are two things I put a lot of effort into, and they’ve helped me feel more tethered to the community at large. If you want to try writing for Odyssey, you can apply here. I encourage you to try it out!
There is no advice that works for everyone. Ultimately, you don’t know what’s best for yourself until you try it. So do that.
