 What will you do after college? I was dead scared each time I was asked such a question. I had spent five years of my life studying a course I didn't like. In my third year, I started to read and write profusely, just out of frustration. I had studied civil engineering, but I knew I wasn't going to practice. I was instead so inflamed with a desire to write. Yet, I was unsure anything good could ever come out of writing. This, each time I was confronted with a question about what my life should be after college, I couldn't answer. I guess this describes you too in some way. You may be fresh out of college, or may just be preparing to leave college. You may be dead scared about what your life will become after college. You may even have studied a course you love, or you may have had your life planned out right in college. But the fear remains, if your life will turn out the way you expect. What's worse is that college degree almost amounted to nothing today. Comedian Conan O. Brand once said in his commencement address at that mouth that, with your college diploma, you now have a crushing advantage over 8% of the workforce. I'm talking about dropouts losers like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. This showing the case that getting ahead with a college certificate may not be as easy as it used to be in the past. No thanks to technological advancement and high unemployment rates. This can be so disheartening if you are fresh out of college, or you are preparing to leave college. In this video, I'll be sharing with you some lessons you need right after college. So let's go. 1. Don't be afraid to stretch If you eventually get a job, you most likely be asked to do more than was indicated in your job description. Instead of complaining about why it's not your responsibility, but willing to see this as an opportunity to stretch, your first job may not be as enjoyable as you imagined it to be, but seeing it as an opportunity to learn will help you in the long run. Wayne McNeil, Chief Legal Officer of Extra Space Storage said, You'll be asked to take on tax, other than what was listed in your job description. Rather than complain, look at it as a new learning opportunity. This is a chance to develop new skills and become more valuable to your employer. Being willing to do more than is required of you at work will open you up to more opportunities, maybe not in the same company but somewhere else. 2. Your degree doesn't quite matter Experience is more important I write for a company now, yet my degree is not in journalism. I hold this job out of my experience, not out of degree. You see, the label market has made a drastic shift from degree to experience and is successfully putting experience over college degrees. For example, you'll probably marvel that the IT guy who works part-time with your company earns much more than you who work full-time in the same company. Why is that? His experience is needful for the moment and as such, he is paid based on what he can deliver. Getting a degree is good but a degree isn't all there is anymore. Brandy Evans, founder and CEO of BDE Ventures noted that many industries care more about your abilities than where you went to school. Many college graduates think their degrees means they can instantly get a job in Silicon Valley as someone who took the Zuckerberg path and dropped out. I've learned that our society has moved to more of a what-have-you-accomplished than a where-did-you-go-to-school mentality. A degree is nice but you need to show real world skills and competitive fields like marketing. If you have nothing to deliver, today's world has very little to offer to you. Your success in today's world is much more dependent on your experience than it does on your degree. Value your degree but value your experience and expertise much more. 3. Read biographies of leaders you admire If you're ever going to get ahead in today's world, there's almost no escaping mentorship. You see, mentorship in business shaves off from your life years you would waste on trial and error before you finally hit success. With business mentorship, you will stand on the shoulders of those who have gone ahead of you and then only will you be able to see further. Popular speaker and author Anthony Robbins once said that, if you want to succeed in life, study the lives of those who have succeeded and copy what they do. If you're scared about how you will succeed after graduating from college, learn from those who have succeeded. You don't have to pursue a successful man to compel him to mentor you. Start to read the biography of successful or even failed people. I have read a couple of biographies in my field and I have seen how just reading those biographies taught me things I would never have learned on my own. As a result, I can tell you what to do and what not to do in my field. Reading biographies and memos of successful people will not always save you from your challenges, but it will teach you how to handle those challenges. Content creator Sharon Kumar, the creator of the popular comic Space Junkies said, I read biographies of my heroes so I could stretch my imagination and empathy. That's how I progressed and how I think anyone can too. For any area of your life where you want to be successful, there are tons of biographies of people in that area you can learn from. This is part of your learning process as you seek to make the most of life after graduation. Number four, don't be afraid to try new things. This is one of the mistakes I made when I left university. I was told by everyone to play it safe. Although I had always wanted to start businesses, people around me told me to stop. I was dead scared to take risks. I listened to the world and for a time I didn't make progress. As soon as I realized I was not going to get permission from anyone to do what I wanted to do and I started to do those things, I made progress. Listen, if you have a dream you've always wanted to achieve, you will find people even among those you love who will tell you it can't be done. They will discourage you from paying attention to it. I've learned that if this world tells you it can't be done, or if it tells you not to do it, you can be dead sure it is something worth doing and then give it a shot. The same world will celebrate you when you succeed at it, but you must first be willing to give yourself a shot. Be ready to take risks, to try new things and be willing to fail. Number five, build your personal brand. Big businesses and corporations aren't the ones who need a personal brand. You need it too. If you will be treated the way you treat yourself, then it matters how you present yourself. You may be holding a job for now, but developing your brand will make you stand out amongst your peers. Natalia Wikowski, founder and CEO of Think Natalia explains, start working on your personal brand today, not in 10 years. How? Get clear on your unique value proposition, your strength, polish it until you master it. Start consuming and start creating content. Join public speaking classes and deliver speeches, connect and mingle with people who push you towards your greatness. Once you are prepared for a great future, a great future will undoubtedly come to you. The success you did not prepare for will never come your way. So, you may not be all you want to be now that you have graduated or you are still an undergraduate, but you can prepare yourself for that great future starting now. 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