Megan Riksen (00:04):

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen. And today I'm joined by Brian Bossick. Hi, Brian.

Brian Bossick (00:26):

Hi, Megan. How are you doing today? I'm doing very good. How about you?

Megan Riksen (00:30):

Great doing well. So today we've put together an episode where we want to talk about some of the ways to prepare for life after college. So call it adulting maybe, but we all know that that word gets thrown around so much. So Brian and I will we'll we'll keep the use of the word adulting to a minimum. We will try, but we probably still will use it exactly, but, you know, basically we want to cover some of the ways that you can be getting ready for life after GVSU. And I wanted to kind of begin with a quick caveat that finding fulfilling employment or getting into a graduate program, whatever your next step is, career wise, after you graduate from GVSU of course that's a piece of preparing for life after college, but today we're going to kind of focus on some of the other areas and some of the things you might not already be thinking about when it comes to this transition but just want it to be aware. Don't worry, we're not leaving you hanging on the job or graduate school search. Of course, that's, you know, that's our bread and butter in the career center. So we would encourage you to refer back to an episode of our podcast from a couple of weeks ago where we go into how to conduct a job search. That's a great one to check out. And then from late 2019, we also have an episode on graduate school. So those are two episodes I can point to right away to tackle some of those issues. Okay. So enough housekeeping, I'll kick it off by just starting and speaking a little bit from personal experience that this time in my life, this transition from like senior year into life after that was, it was really a mix of emotions for me. I was feeling super excited about graduating, but it was also a time in my life where I probably felt the most lost about what life was going to be like in the, you know, quote unquote real world. I literally remember waking up everyday with a pit in my stomach about the future. What about you, Brian? How was that time for you?

Brian Bossick (02:35):

Yeah, I think a pit in my stomach is a great description for me. I I remember trying to balance cause I was going to grad school, so there was like some structure built in that. But it was trying to balance between like all of your time and energy on all those applications, but then also time and energy on like focusing on your senior year, your time with friends. And there was more than one like freak out where all of a sudden like, Oh, I haven't done enough to prepare for the future or I'm ignoring everything. That's important in my life right now. So it really was a hard balance and it was excitement on both ends, but trying to find it meeting in the middle was just was tough. Right.

Megan Riksen (03:15):

So I think you kind of set me up perfectly for our first little tip. I don't necessarily want to call them tips. These are kind of just things we've learned through our own experiences or through our work in the career center and working with students in this transition. But I think avoiding comparisons to others is it's the one I wanted to start with because that's where I feel like I had the most anxiety in this time was looking at everybody else around me and kind of not feeling up to snuff. Right. So that was a trap I kind of fell into. I actually had just returned my scene. So my whole junior year I had spent in a year long study abroad in France, which was an amazing experience. It was great. But I kind of didn't think about the future at all for that whole year.

Megan Riksen (04:08):

Right. So then I came back my senior year and I literally looked at all my roommates and friends and they all had these plans. Some of them even in that fall had their jobs already, you know, that they were going to start the following may and it just, you know, it, it really, really made me just start to compare myself to them. And, and I just didn't, I didn't feel good. Right. It, when it was actually kind of debilitating for me to then move forward and actually think about what am I going to do. Right. It was kind of that paralysis. But now I can definitely look back at that time. And I realized, even though, you know, hindsight is 2020, but you know, I realized that even though it took me longer maybe than some of my friends to get where I wanted to be it doesn't mean that I had to be feeling terrible about myself along the way. Right. So I think just by avoiding, like looking at others and saying, I should be there, you can calm yourself down quite a bit. And then you can maybe focus on some of these other things that we'll be talking about

Brian Bossick (05:14):

That I think it's a fantastic point, Megan. Absolutely. And I think it sets up really nice when you think about where are you in life and like, what do you want that to start looking like? And, and I think that'd be our other tip that we would talk about is how do you establish a new, healthy routines for yourself? When I think about college I think about how you can really have an established routine, right? So you may be working, going to classes, spending time with friends. Your food is pretty well set and, and there, your sleep schedule is pretty well set. Like life is kind of set for you. And then when you embark on this graduation piece, it almost resets. And I think it's really important at that time to to think about what do I want and what do I want some good, healthy habits for myself to look like.

Brian Bossick (06:01):

And maybe you know, maybe you continue to eat like at all of the food centers for a while. So you haven't had a cook, right. Or, or it's always been your roommates who cooked, or you cooked for lots of people or you just slept until three and just ate one meal a day. Right. So you just figuring out like, well, what do I want food to look like? And what I want my food budget to be and what do I want to eat? And before I could have like a really good mix of things, but now I have to be intentional about that. So I think setting up some healthy habits and that might be with food it might be with sleep. So perhaps like you really thrived before on all night or staying up late, sleeping in late and then going and suddenly you're working now.

Brian Bossick (06:43):

And so your schedule is eight to five. And, and how do you adjust that and what do you want that new habit to look like? Maybe going to the gym and working out was a big part of routine with friends, but would, if they're not there at this time, so how do you start to kind of build that in and build that into kind of a routine? So I just think about like, what are those healthy habits that you want? How do you kind of get that routine? And if it was really easy to connect with friends before, cause you all live together, how do you set up a routine where you can talk to them too, right? Where you can't maybe leave the door open in your brand new apartment for strangers to walk in because you know, you're not living with your friends, but then how do you build that time? So I just think you get looking at new routines, you habits in ways to start building that up.

Megan Riksen (07:25):

Right. I think that's great. And taking, you know, the opportunity it's, it's on you now, right? You don't necessarily have those built in support systems, friends or roommates, or just people on campus that you see every single day. So yeah, I think, I think that's great advice to think about what's going to help you to be healthy and have those habits.

Brian Bossick (07:48):

And if you could frame it as an opportunity for us, I think sometimes you mentioned before a paralysis by like anxiety, right? Like, and I think sometimes we get nervous about starting over. So how do you look at this as an opportunity to set those new habits and figure out what works good for you?

Megan Riksen (08:03):

Absolutely great. Yeah. I think that's all really good. So my next area to talk about is kind of this big umbrella of, you know, when, when we're thinking about adulting there, I said it you want to learn how to evaluate information because there's going to be so many new things coming at you as you step into the quote unquote real world. As you enter the workforce or you're entering graduate school, whatever path you're taking that you're going to need to start to evaluate things and how they make sense for you. So just a couple of examples. One would be, you know, actually doing, doing an apartment hunt, you're probably gonna have some different criteria now. Then you might have, when you had six or seven roommates that you were looking with, right. So how are you going to make sure that the place that you're getting is legitimate, that you're not kind of being taken or being charged too much rent.

Megan Riksen (09:06):

So really learning how to evaluate in an apartment hunt situation. Other things that come to mind when we're talking about being an adult is your credit score, right? Like you actually have to think about your personal finances kind of in a new way. Whereas it used to kind of be maybe you have a job on campus. Sure. You know, those loans are out there for school, but you don't really have to do anything about them yet. Now it's kind of like, what's my credit because you might need to have a certain credit score to even be allowed to live in some places. Right. and we actually do have an episode of the work-like Laker podcast. That's called Money Smart Lakers. So please refer to that episode. We go into a lot of the personal finance pieces there. But I remember one tip from that, that, that we had learned was start a credit card early.

Megan Riksen (10:00):

So even now, while you're a student at Grand Valley, you can start a credit card. And as long as you're responsible with that and paying it off every month, that's going to help you to kind of build your credit which is only going to be helpful down the road from a financial perspective. And then kind of another big area when we think about evaluating information would be the job offer job offers are so complex. There's a ton that goes into them. You know, we kind of think like, Ooh, what's that salary going to be here? What's that hourly rate going to be? And that's kind of the exciting part. And you want to make sure that that covers your costs of course, but there are so many other components when it comes to benefits and 401ks and kind of all those different things. So I actually, we're, we're doing a really good job of plugging past episodes because we have a job offer episode as well, actually from about a year ago. So that would be a really, really good one to refer to for some of that take on student loan repayment and rent and utilities and how you can kind of be budgeting in a way right now be thinking about setting your budget so that when that job offer comes up, you can know that you'll be able to cover all of your costs.

Brian Bossick (11:15):

I think that's a great point where you're going. I think these are things I wish I had thought about a little bit as I was kind of getting to that because you can see how they all dovetail together. So well, right. So here's my budget. Oh, this job offer sounds great. I'm thinking about this apartment and suddenly you've got three different things that you need to know how they fit together.

Megan Riksen (11:33):

Right. So yeah, at least doing some research, figure out what normally does go into a job offer. Right? Figure out those components clearly will help you that with that in the career center as well. I actually love when students come in and want to talk about, about job offers and those different components, because yeah, it's a tricky, it's something you, I mean, you don't really get a job offer when it's an on-campus job or you're a server at a restaurant, right. That's a totally different thing than when we're talking about, you know, kind of professional positions. So yeah. Evaluate information and you know, know who to reach out to as well in that space.

Brian Bossick (12:11):

Absolutely. And I think that's a really great lead into kind of our next suggestion of, you know, as you're evaluating professional information to end your life and how that's going to look. Also continue to kind of think about like, what are the things, what are the things that interest you now? What are your passions? Don't forget to keep learning. I think sometimes we draw this imaginary line between, okay, I've graduated and now I'm just going to shift into this other area and I will work and I will do this. And, and, and suddenly you kind of get on a path and I think to ask yourself the questions of like, okay, so what, what are my passions now? Are they the same? Are they different? Am I giving time to kind of figure out what I'm really interested in? I remember one of the things when I finished with, with college and homework was done and there was this feeling of guilt for like six months where you have to, I should be doing something, I should be doing something like, no, this is kinda your time.

Brian Bossick (13:02):

Right. And so to use that time and to think about, okay, is this time that I connect with friends is this time where I haven't read for pleasure in ages. So suddenly I'm going to pick those things up and figure out maybe at this point you don't have a lot of money to travel yet, but maybe your chances to reconnect with friends from school or other places allow you to meet in cities and to travel and to meet halfway. So thinking about those things that are like things that you want to learn about that, your new passions, your new kind of creativity and giving some time to that as you're starting to create a new space.

Megan Riksen (13:34):

Absolutely. And you might find that the job you get or graduate school is your passion, like your true passion. And it's what energizes you. So your eight to five is great. You might have the opposite experience that your first job isn't 100% exactly everything you ever hoped and dreamed for. Right. I would say that's actually probably much more realistic of an expectation. So I think you're spot on like having those hobbies, having those passions to pursue, then you'll, you'll, you'll still be able to have a happy, joyful life where you're pursuing things that you're excited about. Even if that's not, you know, the eight to five, that's fulfilling every single piece of that for you.

Brian Bossick (14:19):

I think that's a great point, right? It's looking at like, how do you take some ownership and control over what you want your life to be like? And maybe your job, like you said, it doesn't quite fit everything that you thought, but it fulfills up to 60% of this. And so what's the other 40% look like. And just thinking about that, that's I think a fantastic.

Megan Riksen (14:38):

And would you say like from a counselor's perspective that that will help with burnout as well?

Brian Bossick (14:44):

Absolutely. Yes. If you are, I think yeah, if you're looking at your job to be a place where you take gosh, a hundred of your refill energy and you're diving into it and maybe it just doesn't quite fit that, right. It fits like 50 or 70 or 80% of what you want. That's a lot of emphasis to put on one thing. So just thinking about you, you got it. Like how do you take some control and ownership over other things that really help you to refill your bucket? I think we often talk about like, you have a hundred percent of energy to give, and if you've given a hundred percent or looked in one place to like refill it all the time, well, if you it's getting pulled in other places, you're going to exhaust yourself. So really kind of building a strong support network to help keep building yourself up.

Megan Riksen (15:28):

Awesome. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. So our next little tip is one that's a little more concrete and something that you can go and do right now, and that is polishing your social media presence. I think it's important as you're going into a job search or applying for grad school, whatever that next step is for you to remember that you're not going to be in college any longer and don't pretend like you're still in college, even once you've graduated sometimes, you know, I'm sure you, you might have this experience or have had this, that you see other people still kind of living the life of being in college. Probably not the best look when you're applying for jobs or grad school. So my advice would be to really take an inventory of all of your social media accounts, because I mean, I've opened random social media accounts before, like I was using Snapchat for a quick second, like barely at all, but a little bit.

Megan Riksen (16:31):

And I like a couple months ago I was finally like, I never use that. Why do I still have that account? So I went and I closed it. Right. So I think because there are so many new platforms and everything that pop up all the time, you might have done something a few years ago, but that still is kind of a footprint online somewhere that someone could potentially find right. At some point. So just kind of take inventory and delete accounts where you think it makes sense, keep the ones that you really want to use. And then take a look at those accounts through a potential employer, a potential graduate schools, eyes maybe you need to up the privacy settings. But you know, also being aware that everything is still online somewhere. But just, yeah, kind of taking a look and just being smart about the things you're posting and sharing going forward.

Brian Bossick (17:22):

Excellent point, I think before Facebook was MySpace where you can post like music that you liked and other things, I think until like three years ago, I could still access matchbox 20 playing on my MySpace page. Right. So yes. Stuff that you don't want out there, or

Megan Riksen (17:36):

I don't, yeah. I don't know Matchbox 20. Do you want your future employer knowing? I guess that's not the most embarrassing one you could have.

Brian Bossick (17:43):

Only if I tell them. Next suggestion is also to take a look at kind of your long-term goals. And I think, you know, as we move into this next stage of life, it's really easy to kind of get into a rhythm, right? So you've set up your food, your sleep, your work, your schedule. And sometimes we forget to kind of think about what are the long-term things that you're, you're working toward. And so I would say giving yourself space to think about some of those bigger questions and they could be just smaller, short, they can be short term goals. It could be by, Hey, by this year, I want to make sure that I travel and I want to save up enough money to do that. Right. Or it could be, I want to start replacing my car. So I'm going to save up and do this, but, but thinking about like, what are some of those goals that you want to build toward?

Brian Bossick (18:29):

And it could even be like, I want to change apartments. I want to kind of go to a place that has indoor parking. So I'm going to like save up for this, but building some of those long-term goals too, so that you're slowly making progress with that. A big component of that, that I would often recommend to take a look at his talk to either somebody that you trust. Who's really good with kind of financial planning, or maybe you meet with a financial planner to say, all right, so am I going to, I want to retire really early. So I'm going to set aside this much, or I don't have these costs yet. So I want to put this and save this here, but to start being mindful of how do you establish some flexibility? And this may be the first time you were at a place where there's a little bit of extra money that I can maybe start thinking about what do I want it to and just, okay.

Megan Riksen (19:13):

Could literally be $20 a month. Actually. I think sometimes we get in our heads, like if it's not thousands of dollars, then why am I even saving? But no, like that little bit over time will go, go, go, go, go. And it's worth it. It's worth it to start thinking early.

Brian Bossick (19:31):

Oh. And then suddenly you have the $400 to repair, let's say a tire that blew up in your car. Right. So I think absolutely. It's, it's building just like that.

Megan Riksen (19:41):

Absolutely great. Okay. So, you know, we've covered some topics. I think we could probably chat about this for a lot longer. I think I'll just kind of end with this, like remember to still have fun, right? Like this still is. I mean, it's a pretty awesome time in life, right? Once you kind of, I guess for me, it ended up being great. I was really nervous about it. Scared don't want to graduate, comfortable going to school. All my friends are around me and I'm not going to say everything was like perfect. The first day after graduation, but in time I did find a job and I did that job for a while. And then I decided, no, I do want to go back to graduate school. And I eventually got where I needed to go. But I think, you know, working toward all these things we talked about, but remembering to keep it light and have fun along the way to like you, you don't have to stop having fun and living, you know, a carefree life once you leave college. Right. and as you, I think you mentioned like you won't have homework, you're not going to have exams. And that's a pretty awesome feeling as well.

Brian Bossick (20:53):

Absolutely. And, and these are, you know, as Megan was saying before when you, if you come to talk to one of us in the career center, like besides the job offer, besides that other stuff, these are questions you can ask us. We would be glad to help provide any anecdotes advice. And if we don't have the answer, we will guide you to the kind of the resource that can help you think about that too.

Megan Riksen (21:11):

Absolutely. So many resources out there for this topic, for sure. All right. Well, I think that's all for today. So thanks so much to everyone for listening, and we hope you tune into a future episode soon.