All college students wonder what their lives will be like after they graduate. Being a recent FSC Alum myself, I’m here to shed a little light on what your future experiences might be.

I hope you’re sitting down.

 

1. You Have To Work Harder To Make Friends

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

“Your college years are the best years of your life!”

Well, it’s kinda true.

For most people, at no other point in their lives will they be near so many similar, like-minded peers.

Every single day you come to campus you have the ability to make a friend who will most likely have the same traits, qualities, and beliefs as you.

After you graduate, it’s a whole different ballgame.

You’ll have co-workers, but they might not even be the same age as you. Even if they are, you’ll see the same people every day. And if it just so happens that you don’t get along with them, where do you go for company?

Your college friends live too far away from you now, so you’ll have to create your own opportunities.

Maybe you’ll join a class that involves your favorite hobby, or find some events nearby to attend. These aren’t bad things, but it’s a different experience from being able to bump into 100 new potential friends while strolling to your next class.

Oh, and dating gets harder too.

 

2. “You mean I STILL have to go to school?”

Maybe. Maybe not.

For some students, the degree they receive turns out to not be enough to get a job in their field of study, so they have to pursue a higher level of education. For others there is a skill gap between what they learned in school, and what abilities their target job requires them to have, so they may have to take a 6-month course to earn a certificate, or study at home.

If you want to avoid these surprises, I highly recommend that you do as much research as you can on your future field. Ideally, this should be done before you choose a college to attend, but doing your research early in your college career is better than not doing it at all.

Doing your career homework now will help protect you from unpleasant surprises in your future.

 

3. Your Habits Will Follow You After College

The good ones and the bad ones.

Here are some uncomfortable questions for you to think about:

Are you an “A student”?

Do you know the office hours of all your professors?

Are you always early to class?

Do you make friends easily?

If you’ve answered yes to at least two of these questions, congratulations. There is a very strong likelihood that your good behavior will carry over to your post-college life.

However, the same goes for bad behaviors as well:

Do you party a lot?

Do you hand in assignments late most of the time?

Are the quality of these assignments usually average or poor?

Do you sleep late more often than not?

Do you procrastinate on your assignments until the last minute?

Sorry, but if you don’t stop now, there’s a good chance you’ll continue these behaviors after your college years and beyond, with devastating results.

There have been many studies done on habits and how they form. The main idea is that 90% of what a human being does during an average day is based on habit. From the way you brush your teeth in the morning, to the amount of time you spend texting your friends before you fall asleep.

And as we all know, the longer a habit is repeated, the harder it is to break. Not just the good ones, but the bad ones too.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re somehow “different”, or that you’ll fix yourself later. Every college student has said this. Even me.

In one form or another, your actions in college will catch up with you.

 

Fix your weaknesses now.

Work on them during the time of your life where you will have the fewest consequences, as well as the most free time.

Your post-college self will thank you.