Finished College! Now What?

By Tommy Leung on 12/29/2008 in Life

UPDATE 6/3/10: Due to an increase in Google searches for this article and the economy holding its face in the toilet, I’ve written another post with some useful tidbits for people who finished college and find themselves jobless. Good luck!

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A great number of people receive freshly printed bachelor degrees from colleges across the United States every year. After four years of studying and/or partying, we get a piece of paper that says we have competent knowledge in a specific field. Some of us studied a little more and some of us partied a little more–I have a bias against excess studying. Each experience will create a different end result.

I finished my undergraduate studies at Pace University this past Fall semester. It took me one extra semester to take all the classes I needed–transferring three times takes a toll on your credits. It was also probably the best college semester I’ve ever had so I’m glad that I didn’t finish in the usual four years and had to take an extra semester.

It seems common to not know what to do with yourself after college. I can’t say I have that problem as I’ve worked every year I was in college except for one: freshmen year. I also never found college to be all the important. So why did I bother going through the whole thing and give myself quite a sum of student loans? Everyone else was doing it? Seemed prudent? Maybe I like to have degrees and pieces of paper that say I’m smart?

The worse part of the college experience is the student loans. I don’t actually know exactly how much money I owe–and I’d rather not figure it out right this minute–but, I know it is upwards of $50,000 and under $100,000. I also refused to have my parents pay for it whether they could or not as it was my choice to go to school. I’m not too concerned about the loans. It is certainly not good to have debt but, at least I didn’t spend it on useless crap at the mall. :)

I’m sure all the money issues will be sorted out and be fine in the end. The best part of the college experience is the networking. Whether you get to know people from partying or group projects or just randomly around campus, these are probably connections that will be useful to you later in life–if not already.

I am no authority on this as I’ve just finished college but, life experience has shown me that it is always more about who you know than what you know. For those of us who finish college with a job waiting or a job already, we mostly likely got them through internships or connections that we had or made in the last four years. There is very little I can say about colleges in small towns across middle America but, I know that colleges in New York City all offer resources for locating internships. After all, all the businesses are here.

I never actually had an internship during college. I had one immediately after high school. It was at an independent game company in New York City: Black Hammer Game. That connection has helped put me in the position I am today but, we’ll get back to that.

I went to school in Tempe, AZ for a year at the University of Advancing Technology to study Game Design. The school was small–had about 2000 students–and it was very focused on technology. It made sense considering what I was looking to study.

However, studying Game Design just wasn’t my thing. I firmly believe schools are where passions go to die. I dislike jobs and think that having a job is really not the best means to any financial ends. I’m not looking to be a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet but, I’m also not looking to be the average person whose livelihood is in the hands of someone else. Popular thinking says that we should find a safe, secure job. I find that to be an oxy-moron. How can a job be safe or secure? You have no control over it so that alone makes it unsafe and insecure.

Anyhow, I did leave UAT after a year and transferred back home to New York City. I definitely learned a thing or two at UAT and it was a nice experience. I had decided to study business when I came back to New York. It had nothing to do with being in New York. I felt that since I didn’t really believe in safe, secure jobs, I might as well study something that could be applicable to a variety of endeavors. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

It took me some time to decide that marketing was my best choice of major. I had transferred to Baruch College after leaving Arizona. Of the three schools that I ended up going to, Baruch was the worst–I am biased against city, state, and most other non-private colleges. After a year of mulling around Baruch, I transferred to Pace University in downtown Manhattan. It was there that I decided my major should be marketing.

Pace was the better experience of the three–I also spent the most time there. I enjoyed my time there and did feel that the school offered something useful. If I were to continue my education at some time in the future so that I can have a bunch of extra letters around my name, and this is at no fault of Pace, I will probably do it in another country. I’m only after the experience and not so much the education. I always feel I can get a better or equal education on my own by doing and reading. Schools are not the only place for learning.

So while I was going to school in New York, I was working the entire time. I had worked for a small internet start-up that a friend of mine in high school had started. About two years later, I went to work for a game company owned by the person who gave me the internship three years ago at Black Hammer Game. Isn’t it interesting how life events weave in and out of each other? At both places I was a programmer. A lot of people find that combination strange. I studied marketing but, I worked as a programmer.

I don’t think it is strange at all unless I was looking to make a career out of something. :) Since I hate jobs and don’t plan to keep one for very long, the idea of a career isn’t really on my radar. I hope that it doesn’t happen accidentally–that would mean I lost focus.

I’m not bad at my job and I’ve got a few games online that people have played at places like Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, Facebook, etc. but, I’m not in love with programming. I would be even more displeased if I was doing mundane programming work like I did at the internet start-up. At least I am making games now–it’s good for conversation. Nevertheless, I can’t stay being a programmer–I already know it. I suppose it is a good skill to have.

My entrepreneurial spirit can never be kept in check. My desire for freedom to do what I want, when I want, and how I want cannot be tamed.

A bunch of my friends graduated a semester earlier. They finished in the regular four year fashion. Most of them are working in the field that they got their degrees in. Those who are working also had internships during their college career. The ones who aren’t currently working at a job didn’t really put the same effort into networking. From what I can tell, it had very little to do with grades and much more to do with everything else.

For my friends, it was never really a question of what to do next. They just kinda knew that after college, they would get a job doing what they just spent four years studying. Ironically, a lot of them were finance majors and the economy collapsed as they were graduating. Luckily, they still managed to find work.

Now that I have finally finished college, I do feel as if a part of my life is freed. It does feel like I’ve conquered something. Climbed a mounting. Ran a marathon. Something. My parents never went to college. My grandparents did not either. They came over to the United States in the 70′s from Hong Kong. In my immediate family, I would be the first with a college degree. I fully expect my brother to graduate in 3 years and the rest of my younger cousins to so in the future as well.

With this feeling of extra time in my life, I don’t really question what I will do next. I know that in the immediate future, I will be working where I am working and continuing to “mind my own business.” In six months to a year from now, things are more hazy. I never plan that far in advance anyway so it is nothing new. I know that I can’t work at a job forever and being that I am only 22, forever is not a very long time to me.

I know that I will continuously be looking for ways to become financially independent and really be safe and secure by putting my future in my own hands. There are a bunch of things that I want to do or have started and this extra time will be filled by those endeavors–this blog being one of them.

For those who are reading this and have graduated college, there isn’t much I can offer. We are in the same relative place in life. Perhaps my story was interesting to read. Where we go from here will probably be different. For those who are just starting college or are a year or two into it, I would say that your best bet is not to focus on grades like a hawk. I’d go to work. Take a risk–better now than later. It is the networks that will make the post-college experience better, not the grades.

And with the economy in the shape that it is, I would steer away from the idea of finding a safe and secure job after college. If bad economic times teaches us anything, it is that safe and secure jobs do not exist. Now is really the time to be independent, resilient, and continuously learning.

There is something that I would really like to do. It will probably sound very cliche and common but, I do want to see the world. There is never a good time to do it. Maybe I should have done more studying abroad? I didn’t do any. Who knows. I know that I refuse to live with “what if”‘s so it is just a matter of catalyst.

The future I see is exciting. There is nothing stable in the global economy. World economic strength is in the process of switching hands whether we, as Americans, like it or not. I don’t even know what continent I will find myself a year or two from now. I don’t know exactly what kind of work I’ll be doing. I love this feeling of excitement, anxiousness, uncertainty, and the adrenaline that comes with it. :)

By Tommy Leung