College Grad Lessons

I turn 22 next week. I know that in the grand scheme of things that I’m still young, but I can’t help but look at turning 22 as the end of my youth. Sure, perspective and outlook on life play into what “old” actually is, and I certainly don’t expect to wake up 22 and feeling much different than the day before or even the year before. However, I’m still a little sad about it. Obviously turning 21 is a big deal in the United States, so maybe it’s just that 22 is a lot less exciting.

For those of you that have already experienced turning 22, how did your 22nd year compare to your 21st year? Everyone, how have your friends celebrated 22? Did anything change between 21 and 22?

Katie posted the following prompt on Twenty Something Writers:

If you were able to communicate with your younger self, what would you say? Would you warn yourself of the things that are to come? Would you tell yourself to avoid certain people? Write a letter to yourself at a younger age. Feel free to tell yourself anything that you’d like to. Let us know what age of yourself you are writing to.

In a previous post, I happened to write about where I want to be in 10 years. I figured it would make sense to write my response to myself 10 years ago. Here is my response:

Dear 11-year-old Erin,

Right now you’re in fifth grade and looking forward to middle school. You recently got into the Math/Science/Technology magnet middle school, but not the English/Social Sciences program that many of your friends are attending. While you are tempted to go to your home middle school to reunite with friends from your neighborhood area and not be a “nerd,” I’d like to ask you to strongly consider the magnet middle school.

If you attend your home middle school, 10 years from now you will be a web developer and trainer at the college you graduate from and will be wishing that you had embraced your interest in computers while growing up. You’ll be preparing to go to graduate school to finally study what you’re passionate about. Ten years from now you will find a passion that you avoided. Those ten years could be used to develop incredible skills.

Pursue your interests and passions, even if it’s the less “cool” thing to do. At 21, you’ll wish that you had gone to the tech magnet school, studied computer science in college and not worried about what others thought. Math and science aren’t subjects meant for boys. You can study anything you want.

Sincerely,

21-year-old Erin

Liz did a two part post this week about the question, “What is success?” I caught myself frequenting her blog to read all of the comments, but it took me a few days to come up with my own response. Liz is a college student and questioned, “How can you be successful in your chosen career without having a corporate lifestyle?” Comments on her first post about success centered around happiness, but defining happiness and the so called “balanced” life is tough.

After some thought, I finally came up with what to post as a comment on the second post:

It’s been less than a year since I graduated college and this is a question I wish I had the answer to. The one thing I have learned is that it’s okay to change your mind about your career, the lifestyle you want, etc. I majored in Economics, thought I wanted to go to law school, changed my mind, took a post-grad internship at a top PR firm that I thought would be perfect and didn’t like it. I ended up working as a web developer (definitely wasn’t in my plans) at the college I graduated from (also not in the plans) and LOVE it. The point is the definition of success and happiness changed for me many times between junior year of college and now. Luckily you don’t necessarily need a degree in what you want to do. I want the experience of the big “corporate” lifestyle at some point in my life, but not my whole life. For me, I think that’s how I’ll reconcile the conflict between wanting to have career success/challenges and also wanting a laid back, slower life where a career isn’t my focus.

Over the past day I thought about the balance I’m looking for in life a bit more. I figured this was an important thing to reflect on given that I’m 95% sure that I’m going to be quiting my job this summer and going to grad school full-time in the fall. Given the state of the economy, I’m lucky to have a secure, challenging job (even if I feel it’s underpaid). At the end of the day, I’m happy with my job, so I need to be 100% sure that grad school is the right step toward “success” and “happiness.”

Ten years from now, I want to have a senior or mid-level position (depending on the size of the company) in the IT industry doing a mix of consulting and actual development projects relating to knowledge management and/or web development. I want to be making enough money to be able to own a comfortable sized condo or home and have money to spend on fun stuff. Accomplishing these things would make me feel successful.

On the other side, I want to be married, have a kid or two and have time to spend with family and friends. I want to have time for a hobby or two and an occasional vacation. I think having these things in my life ten years from now would make me feel happy.

Beyond the next ten years, I’m less certain what I’ll be looking for in life. Currently, I consider my “dream life” to be one in which I work for myself/have a small company (something web development/business consulting related), have a flexible schedule with free time (I realize the first two don’t always work together), can work from home if I want to and live in the South and close to the beach. Accomplishing these things in the next twenty years would be the next level of success and happiness for me.

I try to make decisions about things like grad school based on whether they will get me closer to these goals. I suppose the challenge is that I’ve changed my mind a lot (as I mentioned in the comment I posted), so what’s to say I won’t change my mind again.

Do you have goals that you use to evaluate big decisions? Have they changed in the past few years? Do you feel them changing now?

In college it was easier to find time to go to the gym. I often went in the middle of the afternoon or late at night. The gym wasn’t crowded at these times and I typically had plenty of energy. Since graduating college and starting a full-time job, I’ve had trouble motivating myself to workout. In the summer and early fall I enjoyed running outside in the evening after work, but it’s still too cold to do that. Plus, if I workout when I get home I feel like that’s the only thing I have time to do.

I’m going to the beach in exactly one month and summer is right around the corner, so I’d really like to get back into a workout routine. Does anyone have suggestions for how to fit a workout into a busy schedule and make it enjoyable? I’d love to heard ideas! I’ll post my workout plan later this week after I get your feedback.

Over the past two years I’ve used Turbo Tax to file my taxes because I parents always buy it and I usually was home often enough to find a time to sit down and fill it out. Plus I typically just had one W-2 and only few thousand dollars of income. Since I had multiple jobs in 2008 and now work full-time, I decided it was worth researching what tax filing method would work best for me.

My needs were as follows:

• Input multiple income sources (W-2s)
• Document my savings account interest (minimal) even though I didn’t have the 1099
• Document my “scholar” money that I didn’t get a W-2 for, but wasn’t used for tuition (so had to be claimed)

Initially I looked into H&R Block’s TaxCut. Someone told me it was free (under a certain income level) and easy to use. I created an account but ran into issues because I had the data needed, but not some of the forms. H&R Block’s TaxCut asks for numbers in certain boxes of form if you answer “yes” to having that type of income in 2008. Since I didn’t know what box numbers were what on the form, I was afraid that I would fill it out wrong.

At that point, I decided to wait to file my taxes for awhile. I thought I might get the forms in the mail, but didn’t. I did a bit of research and decided that using Free File from the IRS web site would probably be easiest. I gathered up all of my documentation and a calculator and filled out the form online. It was nice and easy. Personally, I liked using the actual form much better than a user interface that asks you questions and fills out the form for you. It was easier for me to figure out where everything needed to go on the form and why it was being asked for since I could see the entire form at once. After using Free File for my federal tax return, I used a similar program for the State of Maryland. In a couple of hours, my federal and state tax returns were filed and I had received an e-mail confirmation saying they were being reviewed.

A couple of weeks later, I have my tax returns in my savings account and don’t have to worry about April 15.

How did you file your taxes or what method are you planing to use this year?

Today is the official launch of Twenty-Something Writers. The blog/community is a new place for twenty-something writers to talk about their ideas and get inspired. For the blog’s first post, Ashley asked readers to respond to the following prompt:

Tell us about your writing history. Have you always enjoyed writing? Did you hate grammar lessons in school? Who have been your greatest influences? What kind of writing do you enjoy most? Take any creative spin you want. Post your response on your blog and leave the link in the comments below. Check out the responses of others as well.

As a kid, I loved to read and write. Thinking back to my childhood I remember the constant ideas I had for poems, stories, plays and movies. Summers at my grandparents’ farm meant the annual cousin play, written and directed by me of course. I was the oldest cousin, so the role was somewhat logical, but I’m also pretty sure I was a bit obnoxious as a kid. Either way, I miss the creativity that I had as a kid. I didn’t hesitate to fill notebooks with the beginnings of novels. Unfortunately they were always left unfinished, but always because I had a new idea. (more…)

As a college student, Friday nights meant temporary freedom. I survived classes, student government meetings, working, etc. by looking forward to the end of the week. Whether is was a silly theme party or just watching a movie with close friends, there was one guarantee. I would be going to sleep sometime after 1 a.m. (if not after 3 a.m.). Of course, I also slept in and only woke up in time to catch the end of brunch in the dining hall.

As an “adult” with a job, my day-to-day routine is less stressful than it was in college, but I’m completely exhausted by Friday at 5 p.m. In fact, I usually go to sleep by midnight after going out to eat and hanging out with the housemates. The days of going out multiple nights in a row are certainly over for me. One or two nights are plenty.

Honestly, I’m a bit depressed about it. I’m only 21! It turns out that a college grad weekend just isn’t the same as a college student weekend.

How has your typical weekend changed since graduating from college? If you’re in college, what do you hope your typical weekend is like after college?

Like so many others that couldn’t be in DC today for the inauguration, I was glued to CNN.com Live with Facebook Connect. The 2008 election was the first presidential election that I was old enough to vote it, so it was already exciting for me. I would have never guessed that the first presidential election I would participate it would be so historical and inspiring. The amount of people that attended the inauguration speak for themselves. I, like so many others, am excited to watch and be part of the next four years and am proud of my country.

Today President Obama reminded us that we face serious challenges, but that we can and will stand up to them. CNN’s article about Obama’s inauguration speech highlights the key points that he made in his “sobering assessment of where America stands and a hopeful vision of what it can become as he gave his inaugural address as the nation’s 44th president.”

Below are several screenshots taken from CNN’s live coverage of the inaugurations:

The Crowd at the Inauguration of President Barack Obama

Barack Obama about to take the stage at the inauguration.

2009 Inauguration of President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama Being Sworn In