Reality Check

Life in the Real World can be staggering. Not much of college education will apply to living as an adult, especially in that first year after graduation. For those of you nearing graduation, I've compiled a brief guide for your first steps into life as a professional adult. While I can't guarantee any kind of success rate, or even define success, strict adherence to this list can create the patterns by which your future will unfold.

1. Move into your parents' basement. If they don't have a basement, take the spare room, or make the living room your very own studio apartment. Decorate with posters touting slogans such as, "One tequila, Two tequila, Three tequila, floor!" Spend no energy whatsoever on getting out of the collegiate lifestyle. Keep the floor clean by littering it with a protective three-can-thick layer of empty Pabsts. Host parties that run well into the wee hours of the morning every Tuesday.
   
   
2. Don't look for a job until you've actually graduated. Tell your parents about how much time you're spending applying to want ads and how you just can't get a legitimate interview. When you do get an interview, wow them with your incredibly individualistic thoughts on life, professionalism, career longevity, and goals. Do more talking than your interviewer. Explain in explicit detail your objections to a business or business-casual dress code. Refuse to work anywhere that restricts your individuality through appearance standards.
   
   
3. Settle into a routine of waking up at the crack of noon, smoking two Marlboro cigarettes (with your head out the window, of course, so Mom and Pop won't know...even though they do...), drinking only Starbucks brand coffee, and staring at the computer screen complaining about how few jobs there are out there. Send out thirty generic applications a day on Monster.com. Accept every pyramid scheme as a legitimate opportunity. Never submit a resume on paper, and don't bother with that follow-up nonsense. Only use the internet to search for work. Newspapers are so twentieth century.
   
   
4. Take a job at a lumber yard or Blockbuster Video. These are generalizations; Home Depot, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. are also acceptable. You'll know it's time to take this step when you've been out of school for three months and haven't found a job yet. Another key indicator is that your father will wake you up by stumbling through your beer-can-floor-protection-device (patent pending), shove an ad clipped out of the newspaper under your bleary, beer-bespectacled eyes, and say, "Go get a job." Quit this job after a week, or perhaps a month or two, claiming that it's interfering in your search for a "real job."
   
   
5. Go to a temp agency. Take whatever they can throw at you. Treat these assignments the same way you treated the lumber yard. You want a diverse resume, and the only way to achieve that is to leave as many jobs as possible. Also, temp jobs never turn into full time work.
   
   
6. Don't bother with volunteer or freelance work. The last thing a prospective employer wants to see is initiative taken towards individual endeavors. Furthermore, a sporadic paycheck won't help to develop necessary routines. You need to focus on finding a job; not personal interests. Anything that doesn't count as finding a job counts as personal interests, and your personal interests should never interfere with your professional life.
   
   
7. Apply to grad school. Pay the application fee, take the tests, and get accepted. Then don't go. It would just be a waste of money anyway, and you just spent four whole years becoming an expert on something. What do you need another piece of paper for? Besides, it's better to sit around accruing credit card debt than to take another student loan.
   
   
8. Insist that you're an expert in your field of study. Argue semantics with people who have been professionals for ten, twenty, thirty years, and insult their education and experience as being "old, outdated, and patently wrong." Blather incessantly about "modern approaches" and "innovative techniques." Convince yourself that the five page paper you wrote on ethics in the media qualifies you as a topical authority. Don't read or investigate any new books or material you may find on what you studied; they're irrelevant because you already earned your degree. Commit yourself to your momentary zeitgeist-nothing that will happen over the next five years will change your perspective on anything.
   
   

Apply these simple practices liberally. There will be no stopping you on your way up the corporate ladder. Certainly, if these recommendations are followed, by the time you're thirty you'll be President and CEO of your own Fortune 500 establishment. You'll be well beyond a low-level clerical position at a monolithic institution making slightly below the national average per capita income, and free of debt.