<story><title>Things I wish someone had told me about life after college</title><url>http://zackshapiro.com/post/22010015010/9-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-about-life-after</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prophetjohn</author><text>I just graduated last night, but this doesn&apos;t feel terribly enlightening to me. I don&apos;t know if I didn&apos;t have the typical college experience or if people like the author just tend to be more vocal about their experience because those in my position had a less rosy view of the whole thing. But it&apos;s obvious that I&apos;m in a different group when I read stuff like&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;There’s no more Spring break or three months off for summer.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I was in college (feels weird to say it in the past tense), summer wasn&apos;t 3 months off. If I wasn&apos;t taking any classes, I was working full-time so that  during the long semesters, I could work only part-time and still be able to pay rent. Spring break meant I could get a little boost to get me through until summer.&lt;p&gt;I just finished yesterday and I&apos;m intensely relieved. I will have so much more free time than I&apos;ve had the last several years. Maybe I can start a side project or contribute to open source. I&apos;m playing a video game right now. A month ago I would&apos;ve felt guilty because weekends were the only time I could catch up on homework.&lt;p&gt;My post-graduation plans? Seize all that extra free time! Start working out more. Go to that weekly Reddit poker night. Go to more concerts. Go to programmer meetups.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ry0ohki</author><text>Oddly, I felt like I had much more free time after college.  When work ended at 5pm, I suddenly had this huge 7 hour window of time where I had no homework to work on, no projects etc... I started reading for fun, working out, doing side projects, and I still had time!</text></comment>
<story><title>Things I wish someone had told me about life after college</title><url>http://zackshapiro.com/post/22010015010/9-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-about-life-after</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prophetjohn</author><text>I just graduated last night, but this doesn&apos;t feel terribly enlightening to me. I don&apos;t know if I didn&apos;t have the typical college experience or if people like the author just tend to be more vocal about their experience because those in my position had a less rosy view of the whole thing. But it&apos;s obvious that I&apos;m in a different group when I read stuff like&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;There’s no more Spring break or three months off for summer.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;When I was in college (feels weird to say it in the past tense), summer wasn&apos;t 3 months off. If I wasn&apos;t taking any classes, I was working full-time so that  during the long semesters, I could work only part-time and still be able to pay rent. Spring break meant I could get a little boost to get me through until summer.&lt;p&gt;I just finished yesterday and I&apos;m intensely relieved. I will have so much more free time than I&apos;ve had the last several years. Maybe I can start a side project or contribute to open source. I&apos;m playing a video game right now. A month ago I would&apos;ve felt guilty because weekends were the only time I could catch up on homework.&lt;p&gt;My post-graduation plans? Seize all that extra free time! Start working out more. Go to that weekly Reddit poker night. Go to more concerts. Go to programmer meetups.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scarecrowbob</author><text>This resonates loudly with me--  I&apos;m almost 35 and have been out of the university 5 years now.&lt;p&gt;On one hand, my wife paid her way though school and had a very similar experience of working FT (or several part-time) jobs).&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s only been since she graduated several years ago that (as a violin teacher) she&apos;s been able to schedule time into her life for things like vacations and the like.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I spent 10 years in the university, switching from CS to philosophy, getting an MA in English, and leaving a PhD in Literature after a couple of chapters in my dissertation.  In that process there is a tremendous pressure to be constantly working on your project, and I simply don&apos;t have that now that I have been doing freelance web development.&lt;p&gt;Much as with my wife, the certainty of being able to find however much work I need has really allowed me to throttle back on feeling guilty when I&apos;m not pushing forward on some project or other (or, perhaps, just allowed me to feel less guilt on pushing forward on non-remunerative projects like becoming a better musician or learning a new programming technique/technology without a direct short-term payoff).&lt;p&gt;If I could add anything to the OP, it&apos;d be this: taking a full time job that doesn&apos;t mark seasons or develop you into some new person isn&apos;t inevitable.  IMO, your plan to seize new found free time is much more profitable than giving into the flow of &quot;Wednesday just being Wednesday&quot;.</text></comment>