What was your first year after college like?

1. In college: Struggling with studies, played video games and drank to cope. Year out: Moved to Seattle, struggling with debt, playing video games, browsing reddit, drinking, and drinking more to cope
   — azcard480


2. A haze of too much freedom.
   — Daxl


3. I moved across the country and began selling drugs legally
   — Chinstrap_1






4. I majored in Creative Writing and East Asian Studies, so I basically got my barista license. After college, I worked at a coffee shop and actually had a lot of fun. It didn't pay enough for me to make any progress on my student loans, but at least I got to play the "guess what three flavor shots I added to this espresso cup of milk" game with my coworkers all the time. I'm pretty good at identifying amaretto now, and I can still feel the gross fake sweet flavor of sugar-free caramel whenever I think about it.
   — Chuggy_G


5. Affirming. I started college at 24 after having served six years in the Navy. It was always my plan to get out and go to engineering school, but I wondered if I could truly handle the course load. So it was a good feeling after three semesters (we went in the summer, too), to have all A's and B's (even in calculus), a job, an apartment, and a steady girlfriend. I saw that I was on the right track, and on my way to graduating, if I just kept up the hard work.
   — mwatwe01


6. I freaked out because I realized I had a college degree in a field in which I had lost all interest. Decided to go to grad school so I started taking prerequisites; basically I was working 50-60 hours a week and taking 2-3 classes a semester on top of that. But I lived in SoCal at the time and was 20 minutes from the beach, so I had that going for me, which was nice.
   — _disguy






7. This doesn't technically count, as I was technically still in college, but only barely. I ended my 4th year of college with 9 credits left to take to finish my degree. Because of the way my program was set up (Journalism and Mass Communication), I had to take two 3 credit classes in the Fall and then the final 3 credit class in the Spring. This meant I was barely going to school and had a ton of free time. I was working as a delivery driver at Jimmy Johns, and I ended up taking as many shifts as possible, working 30 to 40 hours a week. I was averaging $15 - $17/hr, and my shifts were either 11 am to 5 pm, or 5 pm to 4 am. This meant that I had a lot of disposable income for a 22 year old, good hours for being able to work and party every night, and barely any school. It was the perfect combination of a high level of income and zero responsibility. All in all, it was an amazing year of my life.
   — Teenage_Handmodel


8. Broke AF because I couldn't push myself past my comfort point to do job interviews. I just prayed that a job would fall into my lap and my employers would beg me to work for them. Most of my college friends were set with decent entry level jobs right after graduation. It was kind of embarrassing and depressing. They embraced the weekend warrior lifestyle and would go out every weekend trying all the fancy restaurants or going on mini vacations and I just couldn't keep up financially. I ended up growing closer to other unemployed or barely employed friends (because we could just hang out at Starbucks or a mall or someone's house all day and not buy anything) which further decreased any motivation or confidence to find a job. It really sucked.
   — simplerthings


9. I spent a year working at a coffee shop telling myself "yep - I've fucked up".
   — np89






10. It was one of the worst years of my life. I graduated with a degree that I didn't want, attempted to work in a field that I hated, which triggered depression and anxiety. I ended up quitting the job and going to grad school for a different field. I've felt so much better ever since.
    — a1156


11. Depressing. I started college in a funk. I was gay at a small catholic university, and a lot of my friends were catholic, so I was afraid of coming out to people. Over four years, I slowly came out to everyone in my evolving friend group, and by my senior year, our whole class knew. The miracle was that I didn't lose any friends. They were all accepting and it actually brought me a lot closer to many of them, especially some of my super hetero, fratty guy friends. Then I graduated and returned home for a year a half. My parents still didn't know at that point (still don't really know now), so I kind of ended up back in that dark place I started in. Really messed me up for a while. Happy ending: I'm now living in a house in the city with three gay friends I've made over the last year. Two of them are drag queens so life is a blast. Our place is beautiful, and we go out and have movie nights and invite all our other gay friends over for parties. I'm pretty happy. Bonus happy ending: Mom and dad are still clueless but I visit home 3 or 4 times a month and my relationship with both of them is pretty solid :)
    — JordanStPatrick