Life After College: 21 Surprising Things Every Guy Should Expect in the Real World

Congratulations on graduating from college and welcome to the real world! Have you ever wondered why a college graduation is often referred to as the commencement ceremony? In case you didn’t know, your real life begins after college. Life after college comes with so many things you never imagined. There will be so many surprises. Truth be told, it may not turn like you thought it would. Succeeding in the real world has a lot to do with many things college never taught you. So don’t be caught off guard.

After my college graduation at 21, I received a job offer where my weekly paycheck was 3 times my monthly college paycheck. Look, you couldn’t tell me nothing! I thought I was running the world. To the extent that I announced on social media that I will be a millionaire at 25. Looking back now, all I can say is ‘how ignorant!.‘

By the way, my ignorance was not because I said I would be a millionaire by 25. But it came from not understanding how to navigate the real world. I had little to no information on how to grow or manage my money. All I did in college was study to become an Electrical Engineer, there was no time given to learning about other things needed to excel in the real world. Indeed, I missed a few things but learned the hard way. No regrets though!

So here’s is your chance to discover what they never told you in college about life after college. Delight yourself in learning from my experiences and the experiences of my peers.

What comes with life after college?

Here are 21 surprising things you and every guy you know should expect in the real world to avoid disappointment, frustration and depression:

1. Your Dream Job May Change

During life after college, you may realize what you went to school for no longer aligns with your interests. Or the job you thought was a dream job is not your calling after all.

For instance, it may take you 6 good years of working as a chemical engineer to realize that you enjoy college recruiting or human resources more. Similarly, as accountant it may take you one day of volunteering in your company-sponsored charity fund raising event to discover that your true calling is to help raise funds for non-profits. 

On the other hand, the real world could make you realize that what you thought was going to be your dream job is not viable. Specifically, what you were passionate about doing all your life cannot pay the bills. Now you either have to quit or go find a weekend or evening hustle to sustain your life. 

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2. You May Never Talk To Your Roommate Again

Chances are that the day you leave college campus may be the last day you speak to your roommate. If you disliked your roommate this is good news for you! On the contrary, this is bad news for you if you and your roommate were stuck to each other’s hip in college. 

Regardless of  how often you saw or spoke to your college roommate, once you get in the real world you may never to speak to him or her again. Unless of course, your roommate is your best friend and you make a deliberate effort to stay in touch.

3.About 80-percent of Your Friends Will Disconnect

With little to no group night outs, study sessions, concerts and house parties more than half of your college friends will no longer be in touch.

For every 10 good college friends you had, 5 will be gone with the wind, 3 will reach out occasionally on social media to wish you a ‘happy birthday’, 1 may call you every other month and only one will be there to share your new reality with you. Certainly, this is part of life after college that you will experience so expect it.

4. You Have Money to Travel but No Time

As a college student you were broke. With all the time you had in the world you always wanted to travel. But you couldn’t even afford gas money for a road trip.

Guess what happens when you graduate college? You finally have some money to afford a plane ticket and a lodging to take the trip you always wanted. But your work is so demanding and you cannot get your boss to approve your vacation time. Welcome to the real world!

5. Your Social Life Will Take a Hit

Especially if you went to a big party school or you were a party rock star in college, your social life will slow down. More than likely, in college your social life is very vibrant. Want to skip Wednesday class and go kayaking with friends? Done deal! Interested in skipping afternoon class to attend the St. Patrick’s day parade? Why not!  And that’s college life for you. Attending more social function than study sessions.  

Now in the real world, you will have to buckle down and face some real business. Good luck approaching your control freak boss about taking the afternoon off to attend a concert. Well, just kidding. But you get the point. Your social life after college will definitely take a hit. By the way, if you need help dealing with a control freak boss, check this out!

6. Life May Move You Back to Your Parents’ Home

Remember when you couldn’t wait to move out your parents’ home and go do your own thing?

Fast forward to after your college graduation, you can no longer wait to move back in with your parents while you try to figure things out. Apparently, you are yet to receive any job offer. Or perhaps you are not making a livable wage from the job you have. Thanks to student loans and a few bad decisions you made in college. 

To be fair, you are not alone. According to this article by Market Watch, more graduates are walking across the stage to pick up their diplomas—and then walking right back home to mom and dad’s house. 

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7. You Are in Charge of Structuring Your Life

Compared to your college days, there’s way less structure in the real world. However, most of life after college involves creating a structure especially if you want a great life. 

More importantly, you will need to create a structure around your finances. Some good examples will include funding your retirement accounts, paying off your student loans (if you have any), savings and living expenses. One thing you’ll quickly learn in the real world is that in college you learned how to build a business, run a business and manage your time. However, your college degree may have failed to show you how to handle your personal finances. Obviously, the type of structure you create around your finances will affect the quality of life you have. 

8. Your Dating Life Will Change

You may find this point useless if you got married in college. But for those single and looking to mingle. Here’s what you should expect in your dating life after college.

In college as a freshman you were the youngest fish in the pond. During your senior year, you became one of the oldest fish in the pond. Here’s something to know as you enter the real world. At least for the next year or two after college you’ll be among the young fish in a different pond.

This means that you will learn to navigate the dating life because it will definitely change. In the real world, you are swimming in the same dating pool with a lot more polished and mature people. 

That being said, do not be surprised when you meet people with intimidating list of ex-lovers, who want to have kids immediately. Or much older people asking for your phone number. All you have to do is learn and understand your new dating pool.

9. Loneliness May Hit You

Loneliness sets in when the better part of your routine is go to work and then back to your home. Unless you make excuses to meet people and cultivate great relationships, you will be hit by loneliness along with boredom. 

After being in a college environment for a good number of years, you may begin miss the tail gating crowd at college football games, people watching on campus, the dining hall/cafeteria chats and all the crazy little things that had been part of your everyday life in college. As a result, you may begin to feel lonely. Hence, learn to pick up new hobbies and explore your new city whenever you get the chance to avoid loneliness.

10. Your Bills Will Grow

It’s soul crushing when you have to deal with mountains of bills that never existed in your college life. Some of your newly found bills were things you never had to worry about while in college. Perhaps because you parents or someone else shielded you from them. Some of these bills just come with getting older. Some new bills you may face include: life insurance, medical insurance, professional membership dues etc

Moreover, since you are no longer sharing an apartment with four other people, you bills will surely grow. To survive life after college without crashing, you will need to spend wisely, make a budget and live within your means.

11. ‘Winging it’ Will Cost You More

While in college you may have gotten away with winging things. Winging it means that instead of putting in the effort upfront to prepare for your class presentation, you quickly put a slide show together an hour before class. Even though your performance was not up to par, somehow you managed to get a B-grade in the class after talking to the professor. 

Life after college is so different in the fact that you don’t have so much leeway to improvise things that matter. Reason being that the price you have to pay for inadequate preparation and poor performance can affect you for years in your career. The key in life is to always stay prepared to execute at a high level.

12. A Day Off and Free Time becomes Gold

You no longer own your week days. On a typical day, you get back from work exhausted, yet you have to cook some food, catch up with errands and get ready for the next work day. Depending on the career path you take, you’ll be lucky to get your weekends to yourself. Thus, you will learn to appreciate your day off and treat it like gold.

13. Good bye to Sleeping in

No more getting drunk on a Thursday night and sleeping in till 2 o’clock in the afternoon the next day. If you do, you risk getting fired and losing your source of livelihood. Not to mention, it becomes difficult to stay up watching an entire series of the new Netflix show. Part of life after college is tucking yourself in bed and setting two to three distinct alarms to avoid being late to work.

14. It’s All About Who Knows You

In college you have a thousand people on your contact list and you are following ten thousand people on all your social media platforms. You know all the top people including the names of their cats. You have read everything about most of your connections online. How many of your contacts and connections actually know you? How many people know you enough to help you excel and make an impact in life?

In the real world you have to effectively market yourself to get the right connections. By marketing yourself, you give people the chance to know who you are. There are ways to get yourself known. For instance, you can pick an industry and shine in it. 

Another good example will be volunteering to help out in your local professional society with an upcoming event. Through the event, you get to serve people and in turn exchange contacts as well as make lasting impressions that make people want to connect with you. If you would like to  learn simple ways to make a good first impression, you need to read this. 

15. Staying Fit becomes a Challenge

With a more rigid schedule and little free time, staying fit becomes a challenge. With so many things on your to-do list after work and much less time, you will struggle with maintaining your physical fitness. Even worse, if you have a desk job where you have to sit for eight hours a day staring at the monitor.

Unless you make your fitness a priority, things will always come in the way of exercising or working out. 

16. You will need to Unlearn Some Habits

Old habits will need to be replaced with new habits. No more rolling out in sweatpants to class. Now, your reality is dressing up every morning. Gone are the days when you can sneak in mid-day naps before your evening class. Instead, mid-day naps may be replaced with client meetings. 

17. Be Ready to Perform without Instructions

While in college, you were given a syllabus or curriculum at the beginning the semester. And through out the semester your professors gave you a step-by-step guide on how to do things. You knew what to expect along with having access to the guides that help you meet expectations. And for the most part you were always given instructions for lab projects, homework and group projects. 

On the other hand, the real world doesn’t give you instructions. Instead you get deadlines, milestones and dates. It’s totally up to you to figure out how to do what is required of you. Perhaps, you may be lucky to have a training program in the beginning of your career. However, don’t expect that to extend beyond a few months or a year at best.

18. Donation Phone Calls from Your College

Were you a scholarship recipient in college? If you were, you are about to get on the side of table. A donor. Now if you never received any scholarship in college, you are still not exempt from the donation phone calls. 

That being said, giving back is always a great thing. Nonetheless, do not be caught unaware when you receive the phone call at 7 o’clock on a Monday evening from your college alumni foundation. Yes, they know you just got off work. Even better, the phone call could come on the Friday afternoon the direct deposit from work hits your bank account . What better time to ask for donations than on pay day! 

19. You Have to Prove Your Worth

Sorry to burst your bubble, in the real world the piece of paper you received from college doesn’t mean much. Your college degree only shows that you completed the minimum amount of training necessary in your field. The real test that validates you is conducted in the real world.

Everyday, you get the chance to prove that you are actually worth it. You prove yourself based on how you perform in these areas: adaptability, problem solving and emotional intelligence. In essence, your degree doesn’t mean you are actually skilled. Certainly, it doesn’t give you a free pass. While it may get you an entry, you have to prove your worth when you get in.

20. The Game Isn’t Over, The Game Just Begun

Just because you graduated college doesn’t mean it’s game over. In fact, it is game time for you. Your real game just got started. So if you are already hanging up your boot and retiring your jersey, get ready to get back in the court to play a tougher game.

Your college graduation ushers you into a next division in the game of life. In this division, you will face people who are ten times hungrier, stronger and faster than you did in college. So don’t quit under the guise that you have accomplished all that you can by getting a college degree. 

21. Hard work is Still Key

We live in a world where the younger generation is fond of using the line: it’s not about how hard you work but how smart you work. Truly, hard work is still key. Your goal should be to work hard and smart. By all means, desist from the thinking that you can out-smart your way to the top without putting the work. The good old fashioned hard work still pays off. 

Key Takeaway on What to Expect in Life after College:

Definitely, there will be bumps, heart aches, temptations and lonely times along the way. These are the facts about life that you’ll need to deal with. But, if you keep your head up, you will always win. Above all, make sure you focus on the future and do things that will pay you dividends throughout your life. 

The Promise:

Remember, everyone may not be lucky enough to experience these 21 surprising things after college. But those of us who experienced them are grateful. Not only did it make us stronger, it made us better. Even though you may not experience all, the promise to you is that you will experience at least 3 of these in the real world.

Lastly, there will be great times in your life after college. 

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