Four years of constant companionship, activities, personal and intellectual growth— what’s not to love? Some say college is the best four years of your life, but that’s silly. College is an educational institution, not a unit of time measurement. And surely it’s possible to achieve a greater happiness than the stress of procrastinated papers and that gnawing what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life feeling. But, in case you’re concerned, here are some guidelines for not allowing your groove to go away, post-graduation.
1. Don’t make new friends
The biggest reason people experience post-college depression is because they “miss the people.” This is an easy fix. If you don’t make new friends, you’ll be forced to keep in touch with your college buddies, and you WILL make that effort to stay up to Skype in their time zone. Skip that part of your transitional twenties when you reach out to people in your new city, and just accept that you’ve already made the best friends you’ll ever have, half of whom were products of random housing assignation.
2. Only frequent five places
In college, you only had access to whatever was in walking (or cabbing) distance. Impose these same limitations on yourself in your new city, and you’ll get that same bored-yet-comfortable feeling in no time. If you’re clever, you’ll choose overpriced coffee shops and overcrowded bars, and nowhere you go will have a steady supply of toilet paper.
3. Borrow $40,000 from your parents
Why was it okay for them to lend out money before? Come on, Mom and Dad, now’s when you could actually use the money! Promise to pretend to read books and let old people tell you why your writing sucks if your parents will continue to fund your hedonism. It’ll be like nothing ever changed.
4. Sleep
If you didn’t sleep a lot during college, now is your chance. And if you did, well, that’s one college activity you can easily integrate into your new life. Who knows? You might discover things like how your body feels when it’s healthy, or what it’s like to process information when your brain is truly at rest.
5. Join random clubs
Remember freshman year, when you signed up for all those things that continued to send you emails for the subsequent four years? Good times. If you seek it out, your new city probably has a kickball league or improv class to join. Just throw money at activities— you’ll soon be feeling as productive as you were during those undergrad years, but without the stress of feeling like you owe the upperclassmen some form of commitment.
6. Dress in a toga or leg warmers at least once a week
I don’t know about you guys, but the only reason I made friends in the first place was to find an excuse to wear my bed sheets in a public setting. “Clothes” pale in comparison to the 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton gloriousness I normally get to luxuriate in for only eight hours a night. Attend or organize theme parties on a regular basis, and you’ll never have to settle for the mundane realities of jeans or beige bras.
7. Hook up with people who know each other
This is the best part of college and admittedly, the hardest to maneuver in a real world setting. By now, chances are your opposite-sex-friends have decided one way or another about you, and you’ve either hooked up with them and that’s done, or it’s never going to happen. If you’re adhering to numbers 1 and 3, however, you can probably coordinate some convenient mistakes, and you’ll still get to revel in that awkward morning-after recap over brunch with the entire group.
How have these past few weeks been treating you? Have you been experiencing Post-College Depression, or do you anticipate this happening upon graduation? Any other tips for the real-world-weary? Feel free to write them in the comments section.
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