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Jen Thompson just graduated in May 2007 with a degree in math and a double minor in finance and econ. She works for BNY Mellon and is currently questioning if she should go back to school part-time for her finance MBA or business education (secondary) so she can teach business, coach and have summers off!
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Job offer or not, the coming days, months and possibly years after graduation we struggle to determine our place in the adult world. All the while, a part of us goes on wishing that we had just one more semester of college life left to hold onto.
That, my fellow millennials, is one of the hardest things we have to face – we’re officially stuck in the middle of college and adulthood.
The hardest thing I had to face was moving back home to suburbia with my parents. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents. But when getting ready to go out with friends, I don’t need my mother telling me that whatever I’m wearing isn’t appropriate for the season.
I’m still in school mode. I prefer the days of blasting the stereo, borrowing from 3 roommate’s closets and figuring out what spots we wanted/needed to hit that night. I’m just not a fan of feeling like I’m back in high school. Only instead of going to school, I hop a bus and go to work. Isn’t a job supposed to make you feel grown up?
Going out now means seeing a whole new crowd of kids. My little brother will be 21 next summer. Yes, I’m pumped to go out with him, but that’ll just make me yearn to be 21 again, instead of being the birthday boy’s amazingly cool older sister.
The places I used to love I’m so over now. New places with older crowds have more of an appeal. If I go somewhere for college night, I feel like a sham, but I still, show my college ID to avoid the cover charge.
And who do I go out on the town with? Sure, some people from high school have now graduated and live at home again, but during college I enveloped a more social personality than they’re used to seeing from me. So my taste for going out is different than theirs.
Coworkers are hit or miss depending on your department and social atmosphere. Plus, there’s always the sticky situation of doing something while out that among twentysomethings would be deemed no big deal, but around those older and possibly wiser, you’d risk being the talk of the water cooler come Monday.
In college, there was generally a 5 or 6 year gap between the oldest and youngest students. Now, I’m the youngest at age 22 interacting with other recent graduates, newlyweds, new moms and dads, almost retirees and everyone in between. Talk about a generation gap!
And if that’s not bad enough, I can’t go more than a week hearing about someone my age becoming engaged. I feel behind. Almost like that now that I have the job, the next step is husband and quick!
But where should I look? I’m out of the college atmosphere so I can hope that a friend still in school might have some friends to introduce me to. Work is an option, but there’s always that warning against dating co-workers (again…possible water cooler gossip). The last option leaves good old fashion fate which quite frankly scares me. A significant other (or at least some prospects) is the next step, but where to start?
The friendships forged in college over freshman floor activities, late night pizza, staking out tables in the library during finals week, gossiping until dawn and living together changed graduation day. For the most part, the people I was closest to in high school I’ve stayed in touch with. And I’m still in touch with college people, mostly ones I’ve lived with or had the same major. On the flip side, there are people from college that I would say hi to if I’d see them, but I don’t plan on going out of my way to find out what they’re up to now that we’ve been apart for 5 months.
Now that I’m living back at home, I’m closer to my family but feel out of touch with friends, especially the girls I lived with the last 2 years. Getting together every few weeks is nothing compared to the nightly dinner conversation dissecting our days. Dinner with my parents is nice, but let’s face it, some things that you can tell your roommates and friends you can’t discuss with your parents so time with the old roommates is spent playing catch-up and offering advice and a much-needed shoulder to lean on.
This whole in-between period is part of the growing up, but it’s not easy. Most people in my same situation feel the exact same way. Now that they’re out of school, they’re supposed to act like a mature adult, but it’s difficult to leave the school-minded life behind.
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I wouldn’t worry about rushing into a relationship. I have never been in a relationship, I’m enjoying being free and single and I’m 33. I have never felt left behind. One day I may settle down, probably when I have retired.
Ah, Jen. As your “elder” at 24, I can tell you that this too shall pass. I must admit that I never got the whole moving back home thing, but know a lot of people in our generation do that.
My advice is to savor that you don’t feel like a mature adult yet. There’s no reason too. You’re still young. I still don’t feel like a mature adult. I just play one really well sometimes
Great article.
Hate to break it to you…. you are an adult. Legally, you crossed that line a few year’s back. Not that you can’t act like a kid now and then. You are not in between college and adulthood - you are in adulthood.
College is an activity not an age.
Great post Jen! You are certainly not alone. As a (slightly) over 40 Gen Xer, I can tell you that this transition is maybe the toughest in life, although I’m cautiously looking forward to my mid-life crisis.
Technically, you’re an adult, but you may not feel like it yet. Hold on to that with both hands. Just because you’re now in the adult world and have to act like it sometimes, doesn’t mean you have to all the time. Thankfully for me parenthood actually helps keep me young and gives me an excuse to act like it too. So just when you think you’re a full fledged adult that will likely pop up and save you.
In the meantime enjoy the ‘not knowing’, follow your heart, and most importantly don’t sweat the small stuff and yes it’s all small stuff.
Best of luck!
I agree that there’s a definite attitude or perspective gap between lighthearted college students and sober adults–and man, is it ever a shock when you get out of school and realize how you’re “supposed” to act now that you’re an adult. Your heart might not be in it now, but that may be because you haven’t found your best fit in terms of work and new “adult” friends. Bear with it–it does get better, but not right away. I’m 27, and I never really felt settled into my adult life until this past year.
Although I’m a bit (okay, A LOT) older than most of the people that commented on your insightful blog, I still experience some of the angst you’re describing.
As we move through life we change (that’s positive). Unfortunately, the things, events and people we encounter along the way don’t always change with us. We’d like all of the chapters of our lives to keep up with where we are now, but those chapters are written and done–so they can’t move forward, or those chapters are still being written but without us as part of the story.
Since leaving home two days after my high school graduation I’ve lived in four different metropolitan areas. Whenever I go back to where I grew up, or to a place I lived before I find a level of disconnect–even with friends. My life has moved on. Their lives have moved on. It is difficult to connect with one another as before. We still have meaningful interactions–but they aren’t what we had in the past.
Perhaps what you’re feeling is the natural friction that occurs whenever we scrape against reality.
I believe that one underlying issue here is that many people have this feeling of being lost when they enter the working world, becuase they have more or less, become disconnected from the support system of family or friends. Your parents don’t necessarily support the lifestyle that you have grown into at school (my folks tried to give me a curfew when I moved back home during the summer after freshman year of college) and your friends, who may still be in school, or are working in different fields, can no longer relate with you because they aren’t experiencing the same situations which you are. You aren’t necessarily expected to act like a mature adult (look at some ‘adults’) but you are becoming more grown up because you are being placed in a situation which you are unfamiliar with, and you are learning how to grow and adapt.
The key to overcoming this, I’ve found, is to socialize and make new friends which you can easily relate to, but also, find new ways to relate to your old friends. If they’ve always been there for you, they are still going to be.