Transitioning to the Real World!

Hey Everyone!

I hope you enjoying this nice 3 – day week. Today I wanted give you some details about the workshop I attended last week, it was called Transitioning to the Real World. It was really for seniors who are about to graduate and go out to the real world on their own, but there was information that could be useful for everyone.

A few tips that really made an impact on me were:

• You should always negotiate your job. This is because employers expect it, but make sure that you are respectful and provide evidence as to why you deserve this. You can make an appointment with the CDC staff and they can help you out with negotiation tactics.
• Pay yourself first! This money should automatically go into a savings account (not be used for bills, shopping, etc.)
• Creating a budget will be very helpful (even in college), because you will be paying for a lot of things such as housing, student loans, car, insurance, cell phone, food, utilities…the list just goes on and on.
• Make smart choices and always think of ways to save money: Get roommates to share your housing cost, or bring lunch from home everyday instead of buying from the cafeteria.
• Create an emergency fund, this can be your savings account or you can even have separate account. This is helpful because you never know when you will need it, stuff always happens.

There was also a lot of important information about student loans, and steps to get you started with the repayment. The biggest piece of advice I can give you from this section is to start paying off your student loans as soon as possible, even if it means starting now (as a freshman, sophomore, or junior). This will just help you later on and you will have to pay less interest. I say start paying now because since you are in college, costs are low and you may have extra money to spare. Once you go out into the real world, you will have a lot of additional bills, meaning less money to spare.

Here is the presentation, I highly recommend each and every one of you to take a look at this: Transitioning to the Real World

Thank you for reading! Until next time,

– Omesh