What To Do Post-Graduation (that isn’t getting a 9-5 job!)
By: Talia Walters ‘20
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been asked what I plan on doing after graduation almost nonstop since the beginning of my senior year. My answer is always the same – a scoff that’s the mixture between exasperation, terror, and immediate anxiety – which usually prompts a sympathetic laugh in response.
We all focus so hard on getting into grad school or making sure we apply to all the right jobs, that no one really stops to realize we don’t have to do those things. No one is forcing us to go to Med School or Law School, and no one is making us get a big person job. If it doesn’t seem right for you to send in application after application, sealing your fate until you retire, then don’t. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.
Of course, you still need an answer to that dreaded question. What would you do after graduation if you weren’t doing more school or going straight into the workforce? Well, friend, do I have a list for you! Below, I’ve compiled a few different routes for post-grad life that aren’t just going to grad school or getting a “real” job. They’re all entirely unique options, and maybe you’ll find the one that’s right for you!
Travel Freely
Have you ever wanted to have one of those wild backpacking stories? See the Great Wall of China in Huairou, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, or Big Ben in London? Travel across the world by plane, boat, car, train, and foot, experiencing foreign people, culture, and history?
If you answered yes, then it might be best to just take some time to go out and travel by yourself around the world. After graduation, you’re the freest you will ever be in your entire life. You’re your own person, free of the restrictions of your parents, without any major responsibilities like school, work, or your own family to take care of. Right now is the easiest time for you to traipse around the world for months and gain insight into other cultures. Travel is one of the most fulfilling experiences young people can have, and it teaches you so much.
Of course, when I say freely, I mean without restriction and not without a price. Unfortunately, while traveling the world may be great in theory, it can get a little pricey since you’ll be without income for as long as you’re traveling (notwithstanding the possibility of small, odd jobs wherever you go). You’ll need to save up for a solid amount of time before you leave, either starting saving early in college so that your savings account is a pretty number before you leave or working for a bit before you decide to leave, and be prepared to budget your money while you’re abroad.
There are a few ways to go about traveling continuously, some costing more than others. Many backpackers plan their trips themselves, choosing the exact places and length of stray. This is great if you have a lot of places you want to visit, a very tight budget, or specific interests while you’re abroad. However, the downside is that you’re likely to end up having to go on the trip alone for at least parts, which can be a little lonely. Plus, you’ll have to plan everything yourself, which, depending on the length of the trip, could get incredibly confusing and stressful. The other option is to outsource the job to travel companies like EFTours or Contiki, which would plan your trip for you, and you’d be traveling with a bunch of people the entire time with the same interest in traveling as you. Unfortunately, these tend to be shorter experiences that cost significantly more than if you had planned things on your own, and you have to give up part of your freedom in travel as you’re stuck on the tour everywhere you go. Neither choice is necessarily better, as it really depends upon what you want out of your travel experience.
Au Pair
If you love children and learning about new cultures in a familial setting, becoming an Au Pair might be the right decision for you after you graduate!
An Au Pair is essentially a “live-in” nanny that exchanges babysitting and small, household chores for room and board and a little bit of extra cash. It’s a great way to participate in the everyday culture of whatever country you’re placed in, and it’s more sustainable than traveling freely and out of your own pocket.
Each country has very specific requirements for your ability to be an Au Pair, including age requirements, language requirements, education requirements, and marital requirements. On average, you should be young, with good English-speaking skills, and enough education to be able to teach the kids you’re watching, though you should check the requirements of the specific country that you’re looking to go to.
There are many online resources that you can use to connect with possible international host families that are looking for an American Au Pair. Some of the popular websites include Au Pair, Great Au Pair, and Au Pair World. You’re able to register as an Au Pair on each of these websites and use their services to create a profile and search host family profiles.
Work Internationally/In Travel
If you like the “travel” part of traveling, enjoy working with people, and are looking for financially stable ways to see the world, then it might be worth it to look into jobs that force you to travel.
Becoming a flight attendant or a cruise ship attendant will let you get paid to travel around the world. You’ll be working with people while also having time for yourself between trips to see all of your wonderful destinations. Of course, you’ll always be forced to leave, but given the nature of your job, you’ll likely be back!
Here are the career pages for Carnival, Viking, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian cruises, where you can find entertainment jobs, food service jobs, or janitorial jobs for their various ships. And here are the career pages for Delta, Southwest, American, and United airlines, where you can find flight attendant jobs.
If travel attendant isn’t really your style, you could still find international jobs in almost any country doing almost anything that you could imagine. Jobs are sometimes looking for Americans to fulfill positions, and you can find those job listings on Go Abroad, BUNAC, or Transitions Abroad.
Intern
Just because you’re not looking for a big person job doesn’t mean you aren’t looking for professional development. It never hurts to have an internship, no matter your age or your education level, so after graduation you could find an internship in your field of study to make sure you like what you want to do. You’d be able to focus more time on your internship, and you’d be better qualified for internships that you wouldn’t have been able to get while you were in college.
The great thing is that you can likely find internships for anything anywhere you would want to go, which means you’re not tied down to a specific place or a specific job offer, so you can test out a bunch of different locations and jobs before you settle down with one and sign a full contract. It’s also a great way to get your foot in the door to get a full job offer after your internship.
If you’re looking for an internship here in America, Chegg’s Internship directory is a great place to start since it has a compilation of a ton of different internships all over the country. If you’re comfortable leaving the country, the websites World Internships or Sage Corps are good places to search for a wide variety of internships almost anywhere in the world no matter what you’re looking for in an internship.
Research Assistantship
If you decide to stay close to a university, especially one that produces a lot of research, then you might want to look into becoming a research assistant for the university.
A research assistant would be in charge of researching for a professor or other person seeking to get great amounts of research done in a short amount of time. While this would be a lot of responsibility, you would learn a lot just by doing the research itself, and you’d learn how to take charge so you could eventually have your own lab with your own researchers in the future.
Unfortunately, most of the time researchers are looking for assistants that are still in college, so it might take a little bit of searching in order to find an assistantship post-grad, but once you find a lab that’s willing to take you even after graduation, then you’re in the clear. You’re able to find research assistantships on most websites that have lots of different job opportunities for you to browse through, so things like Indeed, LinkedIn, or even just a Google search.
Become Self-Employed/ Invest in a Hobby
As I mentioned before, there’s no better time to take chances than right after you graduate. You’re free of pretty much every responsibility (except for student loans, rent, and maybe calling your mom once a week). So, if you ever had a great idea for a start-up, a new company, a fantastic project, or a job that you don’t know if you’d be good enough at, it’s a great time to try.
This doesn’t inherently mean just starting a new tech company either. Perhaps this is something like getting your cosmetology license or exploring more technical interests that you may have and want to take up on a part-time basis out of interest or curiosity. It never hurts to have new skills under your belt, and seeking out different or unique certification programs based off of your own unique interests helps broaden your horizons.
Really the best advice to give is to just take the plunge. Failure may seem scary, and it’s not the most comforting feeling when everyone around you seems to have a full-time secured job, a grad school offer, or at least some sort of plan that seems more stable than a 20-something-year-old starting their own company, but if you decide to do something like this, you should recognize that measuring yourself against other people isn’t going to get you anywhere.
If you’re interested in more information about following your passions after you graduate, even if it’s outside the field you were originally studying in, check out this blog post that I made a few weeks ago about the best way to go about finding the best opportunities for you at USC before you graduate.
Teaching English
If you’re interested in the teaching experience but not necessarily long term enough to get a degree in education, it might be a good idea to teach English!
Teaching English tends to be associated with going to another country to teach in schools either as an assistant, a tutor, or a full time teacher. There are programs through other countries’ governments that are usually looking for experienced and passionate individuals, like TAPIF for France, NALCA in Spain, or JET in Japan. You could also find jobs unaffiliated with government programs through websites like CIEE or even through EFTours.
However, teaching English doesn’t inherently have to mean that you leave the country, as there are thousands of individuals in the US that don’t speak English as a first language. The easiest way to go about doing this would be to become a part-time tutor without an official affiliation with any other program, as the requirements to teach English in the US are a bit more strict than those to teach abroad. However, if you’re interested in finding a legitimate ESL job in the US, you’ll have to get your TESOL certification to be considered for a job.
You can get your TESOL certification from a number of different places. In fact, UC Irvine has an online course that you can take over a nine-month period in order to get certified. Or, some of the better known programs are Premier TEFL, International TEFL Academy, or ITTT. Each have different time requirements, prices, and curriculum, and most offer both in-person classes and online classes.
WWOOF Farming
Are you particularly interested in organic farming for yourself or the greater good of humanity, or maybe you are interested in spending time on a farm, away from the crazy city of Los Angeles? Then you might want to look into WWOOF Farming!
In all honesty, I also hadn’t heard of this before writing this article, but they’re a really interesting group of people. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF, seeks to link people with organic growers and farmers in a non-monetary exchange in order to support more sustainable global food consumption. You would be participating in various chores around your host farmer’s farm, including harvesting, animal care, and making compost. It’s an engaging way to interact with the farming field and develop hands-on solutions to the problems of unsustainable agricultural practices while helping out farmers who may not be able to hire employees.
If you’re interested in cultural exchanges with international farmers, a hands-on experience in organic farming, or researching sustainable agricultural practices, then WWOOF may be for you. They have participants sent out in almost every single country all over the world, and you can choose your destination. The process is similar to English Teaching jobs or the Au Pair process, where you’re able to read through a collection of host farmers and find the one in the place that’s right for you.
Of course, it’s important to know that WWOOF farming is not a form of employment, meaning that you would have to find ways to sustain yourself in your host country while you’re farming (though I imagine food would be covered during your stay given the nature of the experience!).
Volunteer
If you’re particularly passionate about making the world a better place, then you might want to consider spending a few of your post-grad years on the non-profit circuit, volunteering for a host of various causes.
The Peace Corps is a reliable way to get placed in volunteer opportunities all across the globe for different movements and jobs. They have programs in a bunch of different countries, so you should choose a place that you’d like to spend time in enjoying a local culture while also participating in community service.
Of course, if you’re not looking to go abroad, you could look into something like Teach for America if you’re looking to give back to schools in the United States, to get teaching experience, or to just see a new part of the country while making a difference. Or, if you interested in other forms of volunteer opportunities, there’s a helpful government compilation of websites that could connect you with various volunteer opportunities all over the country.
Conclusion
Ultimately, you shouldn’t feel like you have to fall into the same boat as everyone else that’s graduating around you. If you can’t imagine immediately going into the workforce or going back to school for another three or four years, then don’t. Build your own path after graduation. That degree is yours – you can do whatever you so well please with it!
Want more from Trojans 360?
Visit Trojans 360 on Facebook & Twitter to stay up to date with more student content! You can also Ask A Trojan an anonymous question, and we’ll try to answer it in a future post. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram!
Trojans 360 is USC’s official student-run blog. Content created by students, for students.
