Secrets to smart decisions when you graduate from college

Secrets for making your advice sound more interesting:

1. Put it in the form of bullet points

2. Call it "secret"

I think she is right about graduate school, though. Going off to grad school because you have nothing better to do isn't really a good use of time. Most post-grads would be better off by working in their field for a number of years, as that way, they get some pretty valuable experience in dealing with the 'real world', and they have a chance to try a life outside of academia.

If a recent grad can't figure out what kind of job they want, there are a lot of other opportunities -- the Peace Corps, for one, or moving to another country to teach English for a few years. Anything is good, as long as it requires that our hypothetical graduate stand on his own two feet.

Honestly, I'm finding myself facing the 'what do I do now?' conundrum. I left a rather nice job as a sysadmin and went back to school about four years ago, and in about an hour will finally be done with my second BA[1]. I've been programming since I was a kid, so it seems like a natural career path, but I'm not sure that I want to just go back to the corporate grind. There are so many problems out there that need to be solved, or at the very least stuff that could be improved, and while I'm far from being the smartest guy on the face of the Earth, I'd like to have a go at doing something more useful than pumping out Java classes.

So, rather than 'soul-searching' and doing nothing, I'm using up what remains of my savings to have a go at starting a company, and spending a lot of time doing things that I've always wanted to do, but shoved off -- like traveling in Europe, getting back into martial arts, and so on.

I know more than a couple of other people who are in my position, and many of them have opted for the 'do nothing' route -- they spend their entire day playing video games. So, her 'secret', of making sure that you do something, is good advice, I think.

[1] My first degree is in Mathematics; I'm rather proud of that one. The second is in Japanese, and I've asked if they could print the diploma on toilet paper, so that it might be useful for something...

Seriously. I find it difficult to take advice from her after some of the stuff she writes on her blog.