If college graduation bells are ringing for you, I’d like to suggest a reply: “Hold on! I’m coming!”
Yes, those are contradictory statements — and the title of a great song — but that’s intentional.
For most students, college is a wonderful experience, maybe the most fun you’ll have at any point in your life. The combination of people, events, opportunities — and the freedom to experience them all at whatever level you wish — is going to be very difficult to match.
So hold on! Take some time to walk around campus and remember where you were and who you were with when you did something, learned something, succeeded or failed at something.
Get in touch with the classmates, professors, office personnel, coaches or bartenders who contributed to your college experience, and thank them. Do it in person. If they really made a difference, bring them lunch or a beverage and ask if you can keep in touch.
That will help them remember you as much as you will remember them. If you haven’t discovered it yet, “who” you know is going to mean a lot more after college than “what” you know.
When that’s done, you can begin taking the serious steps needed to let the working world know “I’m coming!”
