Advice to New Graduates

As I have written recently, I began to subscribe to the New York Times about a year ago.  (It costs something like $15 a month; which is more than Netflix.)  There was a request for Advice to New Graduates there, which they later published as part of one of their newsletter.

A couple of years, I have posted on this Blog my own advice, just as an opinion piece, with no expectation that it would be go over big with anyone!  I'm going to do it again, in the hope that someone sees it and recommends it to a new graduate.

There is some advice, but, unfortunately, it is advice for someone in their Junior year at college; it is almost too late now to do anything about it.

Advice

The Trivium.  Most colleges make you take courses in composition, mathematics (or something numerical, anyway), and something like history or literature.  I think the main idea is for the students to be able to write fairly effectively, read effectively, including skimming as needed, and do calculations if they have to.  Most people have to do all three.  The higher up you go at any job with a large number of employees, the more you have to do of these things.  I leave that there; you should ask your parents, or your older siblings, whether this is true.  (Don’t ask your idiot siblings; they may not recognize that they are writing, even if they are.)

Money.  Save a little money with each paycheck, starting right with your first paycheck.  Even $5 a paycheck for the first year is fine; increase it by 50% each year, and round up to the closest multiple of 5!  You won’t be rich, at the end of it, but you will survive retirement, ideally.  If your employer has a retirement plan, join it.

Attitude

These next few items is for when you graduate, and are looking for a job.

Flexibility.  Be ready to do anything reasonable, even if it isn’t in your specialty.  My wife’s training was in archeology, but her first real job was as a writer for an engineering association.  My daughter’s degree was in graphic art; her job is as the technology maintenance manager for a print company.  See what I'm getting at?  If they had insisted on waiting for an opening in their exact fields, neither one would be making as much money now as they are, though of course we have to admit that money isn’t everything.

Be a Team Player, but Leave an Unhealthy Environment At Once.  Don’t be one of those people who are always Looking Out for Number One (an Eighties way of saying don’t think of anyone except yourself).  On the other hand, if the workplace atmosphere is truly poisonous, leave.

Leisure.  Don’t make your employment your life.  If you’re a teacher, of course, it is tough not to make teaching your entire existence; the students and the administration, and society, push you to thinking that teaching is all there is.  You will be a better teacher if you have a life.

Frugality.  The Seventies were a tough time.  Studs Terkel, an interesting character from the Sixties, has written a book called Better Times.  If your paycheck is small, and your expenses are high, this book has advice for you.  There is a common belief—which I subscribe to, incidentally—that the Baby Boomers are conspiring to keeping the Millennials in a state of poverty.  Well, keep an eye on the people around you, and assess the power dynamics dispassionately.  Align yourself with those who have reasonable plans to make things better, not least of who are the so-called Alt Left.  Universal Child Care, College Loan Forgiveness, Medicare For All; these things will make life better for everyone at the bottom of the 'Food Chain'.  Of course it will make life harder for those at the top; but they’re taking care of themselves, by reducing taxes, electing Trump, trying to destroy Obamacare, etc.

Don’t sink your hard-earned money into showy things like fancy automobiles, or big houses, etc.  Stay away from high-maintenance partners; a good partner will pull his or her weight, including emotional weight.  You can compromise your economy to wear decent, well-constructed clothes; wearing scruffy clothing to a workplace is a kind of disrespect that you should not show, even if all the fellows there are a*&$*les.  It is better to just leave.  Hint: buy your clothes at a used-clothes store, like Goodwill.  They often have clothes that are better made than department stores.  Conversely, if you strike it rich, and outgrow your fine threads, give them to Goodwill and return the favor.

Eat Healthy.  Cooking for yourself is a brilliant strategy; it prevents you blowing all your cash on eating out.  If you just can’t do without pizza, save your craving for one day a week.  Learn to cook real meals; select some standard recipe you haven’t tried before, every Saturday, and expand your cooking skills.  One thing I did, which you might not think practical, was to join with a friend for supper.  I cooked, and he helped with the groceries, and sometimes he cooked, and I helped with the groceries.  With two of us thinking about the menu, we found it easier to avoid eating junk.  (When we did eat junk food, it helped that he ate half of it.)

Keep a positive attitude.  Nothing is more attractive in a person than a positive attitude.

Arch

P.S.:  I’m just five clicks short of a lifetime readership of 190,000 views!  I don’t write posts intended to lure people into reading this blog; giving advice is an occupational hazard of being a teacher, and being old!  Readers: a blog is a wonderful thing; you get to talk yourself down, and you get to dispense your wisdom without putting it on Facebook, where it clutters up other people’s news feed.