New Grad's Guide to Finding Your Path
We're about a month away from college graduation across the United States.
So far, students have focused on getting enough of the right credits to graduate.
They've chosen a major based on what they're good at, what their parents told them, or what would position them to "get a good job" once they are out.
Higher education is great at ensuring students walk away with the ability to digest information, create theories out of theories, and hopefully...simply...be able to learn.
But, what higher education seems to be missing is a focus on designing a life.
It's missing the bridge to create a smooth transition. And this is a very different kind of transition...in fact it's not a transition at all. It's a transformation.
It's entering into a world without report cards and grades. Without professors and homework. There are no syllabi, rubrics or "just-do-this-and-you-will-succeed" checklists.
Instead, it has health insurance, relocations, long-distance relationships, bosses, 401Ks, performance management, and multi-generational teams. It has products you don't understand, leaders who become celebrity equivalents, email, confusing tech, and ambiguous assignments.
I spoke with some recent grads lately (graduating class of '21). They expressed how disorienting it can feel to be pushed out of the educational track that has been the backbone of their past 18-20 years, prescriptively guiding them with a syllabus, rubrics, and "now you move on to the next level" messaging.
They cross a finish line only to find themselves with their belongings in a backpack filled with expectations (their own and family members'), holding a cardboard sign saying "open to work". That first job offer is like being picked up by a stranger and just riding along wherever they are going.
Those are the "lucky" ones.
Some will stand for months with that carboard sign. Their dreams of a promising future dimming slowly and painfully. Without a map or a GPS, they might eventually wander over to a fast-food restaurant just to make some money.
After all that work... this is it?
And, for the ones who took that ride, they may wonder the same... this is it?
So, what if there was another way?
What if there was a method to learn what lights you up?
A group to encourage you, share some wisdom, and support your transition?
That's exactly the thing that my business partner, Hazel Hoff (Further Coaching), and I are cooking up.
If you are an upcoming or recent college graduate or you know an upcoming or recent college graduate, have them contact me for more information. We'll have a pilot program ready for June and would love to have you /them join us as they figure out what comes next.
In the meantime, here are my favorite free assessments and tools to help you create the life you want to live...with intention.
Sparked
- "You are about to discover your Sparketype™, the essential nature of work that fills you with meaning and lets you feel fully-expressed, alive with purpose and absorbed in flow ("sparked"). Your Sparketype serves as one of the single biggest clues in your quest to figure out what to do with what the poet, Mary Oliver, called your "one wild and precious life."
StandOut Strengths
- "Marcus Buckingham's strength-based assessment, which includes a 14-page detailed report describing your greatest sources of strength and contribution."
- Made free in 2020 as a gift during COVID - I don't have info on how long the great value will last -- so don't wait!
https://nobodymakesitalone.com/the-new-grads-guide-to-finding-your-path/
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