From being young, wild, & free to a more responsible adulthood? Did you have to give up or sacrifice anything after you graduated from college? For example: going out less often or limiting your expenses by only buying things that you need, in order to save some extra money?
I think life typically gets harder as you get older, because you have more and more responsibilities, and more things can go wrong. Whenever my 20-year-old tells me how “stressed” she is, I have to bite my tongue not to say, “Wait until you’re responsible for five people, two dogs, and two birds, plus figuring out how to help your aging parents…”
Sorry, I’m grumpy today.
Haha, No, I do not bite my tongue, and never miss a chance to remind my DD to enjoy her carefree HS life, when you are fully supported by parents. Life definitely gets complicated and busier after adulthood (and kids)
@NCKris, if D didn’t have a diagnosis of anxiety, I wouldn’t bite my tongue, either!
I had no money in college and was frequently hungry or cold or both.
My 20s were awesome compared to the somewhat ascetic life I led as a teen trying to get through college working several jobs. I love traveling. I love work. I love avocados, I love being old enough to drink alcohol legally.
My family was working class, by no means among the poorest in the US, but not rich either. I paid for college myself, and later in life, I have paid for a grad degree (rather, I got scholarships, but paid for the rest using loans and by working).
For me, working full time is a thousand times better than working full time and going to college. Plus my job has nothing to do with bringing people food which is a huge bonus.
I doubt anything would be as good as being fully cared for and independently living at the same time. That sounds awesome. Enjoy it while you can!
When I was younger, I spent most of my time playing video games. I have aserpger’s.
I spent 80% of my time in HS inside of my bedroom on my Xbox 360.
During that 20% that I didn’t, I was either in HS or browsing forums online, on MSN, etc.
My family was not horribly poor but pretty poor. I couldn’t get a job despite how hard I tried because they could definitely tell something wasn’t right with how I couldn’t look them in the eye for an interview. I could not get a job at Walmart or McDonalds or even the local library despite how many times I applied. I couldn’t afford prom or the senior trip, so I didn’t go. We lived in the ghetto. Murderers down the street, meth labs just behind my street in the project housing, and I was studying physics in the living room when my neighbor was murdered outside. I suffered one PTSD-type incident in college when I heard some gun shots, but I’ve okay since.
I spent three years commuting back and forth to a community college an hour away when my dad was able to get me free tuition because of his disabilities from the military. It took a year to do it, so I started college at 19 and I was strongly motivated to make something of myself, like become a pharmacist or doctor, or even a lecturer at a university. I did well my first year and was on track to apply to universities that I had in mind like MIT, CalTech, whatever. But then I kind of just pissed that away because I got involved in a crowd that wasn’t good for me and I spent most of my evenings out with friends up to no good or blowing off classes. I got kicked out my honors transfer alliance program with UCLA and only after that did I realize I needed to get my butt in gear and transferred out after my third year to Cal Poly Pomona for a degree in Mathematics & Statistics. I was surprised they took me, but I busted my butt over the two years I was there and graduated.
Post-college life, I struggled to find a job for three months. I had thought I had one setup because I had interviews, but I had no offers. The job I ended up taking was something I never thought I’d do, which was software engineering. I basically became a software engineering intern for three months until they decided to promote me into a position that was more of a “technical help desk”, but I was still being heavily underpaid because I was not working on the technical help desk until about a year later, I was working on a software development team. Come to find out, the company was being reorganized and I was put on a new team that combined all the technical help desk people from all the teams in the company into one team. I became the superstar (wasn’t much of a challenge) while I was on that team, but I hated EVERY minute of it. I hated that I worked so hard and got passed over for a promotion and then I spiraled into depression because my paycheck was so low and I was living in a bedroom that my fiance’s mother had in her apartment for 2 years. I sunk $24,000 into going back to school for mechanical engineering after convincing my then boss that I could handle both school and work, which only lasted for a while. I applied internally for a position in the company and the same guy who had given me one of the worst salaries you could give a new graduate tried to lowball me again and I basically told him you either pay me X or I’m leaving. My fiance then completed graduate school and got a job, we got the heck out of that one bedroom and into our own apartment. I grew more and more depressed because school was hard and work was hard and I basically had zero time for anything else. I applied internally for a position in the company for a software engineer III role and despite them actually needing one and me passing the interview questions at that level, they knocked it down to I and gave me a 45% raise after a lot of salary negotiating because I was pissed that they thought that less of me. I moved out my apartment and got a house. I gave up on ME. I was enjoying SE a lot. After kicking butt after one year, several personal problems arose with a clash between I and a coworker, which could not be resolved because they were literally targeting me and wrecking my career at that job saying I wasn’t a hard worker, but everyone backed me up on my team saying I was the one who did the most work. She just didn’t like me and I sure as hell didn’t like her. I looked elsewhere for a job, a friend recommended. She went to the CTO about me and somehow manipulated the system in a way to deny me from taking any paid time off (how does that even work?) for one whole programming increment, which is like 3 months. Complete BS to deny me paid time. Needless to say, I was out the door after I had just completely owned the entire year and my boss denied me a promotion because he thought that someone else on my team deserved it more and that he only recommends one person a year for promotion, which makes zero sense since people were handed out promotions like candy that review period.
I got a job offer for 35% more 9 months ago, a higher position, and I took it. I just got a 6% raise.
I’m getting married in October because of the money I was able to earn from moving onto this new job. Would’ve taken me like 3 years on average otherwise of saving.
As far as friends go, you need to make time for your friends. Almost always you either need to drive or they need to drive to you. Or even fly. A friend of mine was just here on Tuesday for a concert we had planned for months. I always see my college friends once a year when I go back home.
As far as responsibilities go, it sucks! I miss not being as responsible as I have to be now because I have three dachshunds which are my children basically (will have real child next year) and a fiance.
You give up a lot to be able to pay the bills. Basically living in poverty for a while was one of the worst feelings ever. Sometimes I would cry while eating sandwiches at home. Do not end up in a low paying job. Get a high paying job from the start.
Compared to college where I basically had nothing because I could afford only the bare essentials, I have some really fancy and technically amazing stuff because I am able to afford it with a job. And we go out to eat more because of said job.