Dear new college grads,
First of all, congratulations! I hope your recent graduation was magical and perfect and that you made it across the stage without falling.
Anyway, now that you have your degree (or degrees!), it's time to get serious... or is it? If you're like me, you don't yet have a full-time job and you still don't have a clue where you'll end up working. And you know what? That's OK.
Perhaps you've been applying for multiple positions in your field of study without any luck, maybe you've been kind of lazy this semester and you haven't begun looking for jobs at all, or you might have just decided that you have other things in your life that you want to be doing right now. Regardless of your reason for not having a career immediately lined up, after four years of homework, volunteer hours, group projects, and final exams, who really wants to go straight from graduation to working in a cubicle just a couple of days later? No one, that's who.
Honestly, I believe it's perfectly fine to take some time off, whether that means a week or six months — whatever works for your personal situation. You deserve it. Since you don't have a job right away, take time for yourself to recuperate mentally, emotionally, and physically. After all, once you accept a job you'll be working for the rest of your life; therefore you'd better utilize this precious time to relax, travel, visit with friends and family, or whatever else you want to do. This is probably the only time in our adult lives when we get to be a little selfish. For most of us, we don't have to worry about taking care of kids, assisting our sick or elderly parents, buying a house, or many of the other life events that will happen later on. This is the time to focus completely on you.
Although it may not feel like it right now, everything will come together eventually. You don't always need to have every single second of your life figured out (even if many of us would like for it to be that way). Remember, these are some of the best days of your life, and one day you'll wish you could relive them. Enjoy the journey of life and don't get so caught up in the destination, because most of the time the journey is the best part.
Good luck in everything you do,
Me
