There is a special feeling that permeates the air across America in the middle to late weekends of May. Yes, Mother’s Day comes and goes, NBA basketball enters the playoff season and the first summer movies hit the theatres, these are all important
There is a special feeling that permeates the air across America in the middle to late weekends of May. Yes, Mother’s Day comes and goes, NBA basketball enters the playoff season and the first summer movies hit the theatres. These are all important annual May events, but they aren’t the reason for the feeling. May is a particularly special month to millions of Americans each year because it is the month when the vast majority of college students and graduate and professional students will march across the stage and receive their degrees. There is nothing more moving, more powerful and more gratifying than finishing a well-earned, well fought for and well-deserved portion of your education.
This is time when all too many media outlets will bombard America with statistics. What’s the unemployment rate? Have (fill in the blank ethnicity) students increased or decreased their graduation rates? How much debt is the class of 2009 saddled with? These are all questions that can and will be answered in due time by America’s newest graduates, but there are other rituals that the newly matriculated must endure above and beyond the daunting philosophical and economic questions they’ll be faced with by the press and their peers. Allow me to partake in one of the classic graduation rituals today, dispensing unsolicited but incredibly important advice.
Dr. Seuss’s book “Oh the Places You’ll Go” is a famous gift to new college graduates because the book encourages young people to go out into the world to find their true calling and adventure no matter how off the beaten path it may be. In my first piece of advice to new graduates, I’ll take that suggestion one step further: Get Out. Get as far as you possibly can from home, from college from anything that is familiar to you. Take some time after you graduate from college to explore some job, some part of the country or the world that you think you’d have no interest in staying for good but might be worth exploring for a couple of months. All too often people graduate from school and return all too quickly to the same banal habits and lifestyles that they swore throughout college that they wouldn’t repeat. Whether that’s moving back to the old hood and hanging with the same crowd, or taking that well paying “job” one month out of school and locking yourself into the rat race before you even realize if you want the cheese at the end of the maze. Taking a break after school is no longer the prerogative of the rich. With the poor economy, more banks are becoming lenient towards the amount and speed with which student loans must be repaid.
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