 Hey y'all, what's up? My name is Sonali. Welcome to my channel if you are new. Today I'm going to be telling y'all everything you need to know about post grad. I graduated from the University of Central Florida in May of 2019 and this past year has been such a learning experience. So I wanted to put together this video for the 2020 graduates. First of all, congratulations. And second of all, good luck. My first tip for post grad is to be prepared to not have a job before graduating. Unless you're applying to jobs way early on or you accepted a full-time position at the company that you had an internship at, it's actually pretty common to not have a job before graduating. And I did not know this. I feel like when I was a freshman and I saw people graduating without jobs, I was judging them so hard because I guess I just didn't really realize how hard the job hunting process actually was. And I know with everything going on this year, with people getting furloughed from their companies and companies just getting a little bit smaller, it might be a lot harder to find a job. So just know that it is okay not to have a job before graduating. Even if you see all of your friends getting offers, it's going to be okay. Your time is going to come and patience is a virtue. My second tip is if you can save your money senior year or even all throughout college, but specifically just have enough money at the end of senior year to possibly make a big move to another state. I went to college in Orlando. I was originally going to go back home to Georgia, stay with my parents for a year or two, save up money, but life took me to Texas. So I'm currently in Austin, Texas. I am so thankful that I saved up a bunch of money at the end of senior year because since I moved to a different state, it was very hard for me to find a job because I didn't know anyone and I didn't really have that many connections here. So it took me a while to find my job. So all of that saved money went to moving costs and paying my rent while I didn't have a job. The third thing you should know is that it is very hard to make friends post grad. The whole time I was in college, I was like, wow, making friends is so easy. Like everyone's kind of on the same page. You're kind of around all these people within the same age group too. So that's a lot easier. And I feel like in Greek life, especially, you all have this similar bond that you're in a sorority and you're kind of going through similar experiences. So you can connect over that. But when you're put out into the real world, it's definitely not as easy to find people with similar interests. Trust me, I've joined every Facebook group for photography and videography. And I also went to a handful of meetups for podcasts I listened to. But I just feel like it's going to take me a lot longer to actually bond with the people that I met throughout these networking events and stuff like that. Because when you're in college, you're around these people so often. Like you go to class every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or you go to meal plan in your sorority house every single day and talk to the same people every single day. So it's a lot harder because you have to like make the time for the people on the weekends because you have a job now. And it's just going to take a lot longer for you to make friends. And it's just not as easy. The fourth thing to know is that you're going to have to make more of an effort to stay in touch with your college friends. I feel like in college it's kind of easier to keep in touch with your high school friends because you go home every summer break and winter break and any other break you have, you visit home a lot. So you visit your friends at home. But when you leave your college town, your friends also spread out around the country. So it's definitely going to be more difficult. You're going to have to make time to FaceTime or text them more often or Snapchat more often or even like plan a vacation to meet up with them. It's not going to be as easy as just going home and having the convenience of your friends just being there. Speaking of convenience, life is just not convenient anymore. You're definitely going to have a longer commute unless you work from home like me. Thank God because I hate driving. But maybe you're used to a five minute commute to school or a five minute walk to your class outside of your sorority house. But depending where you live and depending where your job is, it might be like as long as an hour due to traffic and stuff. You also just have to plan more, especially if you want to hang out with friends or meet up with people. It's not as easy as just going into someone else's dorm room and like being like, Hey, do you want to go get a bazookie like at 10pm? It's just not like that anymore. And I wish it was and I miss it so much. But life is life. And this is how it's going to be from now on, I guess. The next thing you must know is that rent is expensive AF like I did not even realize how much we would be spending on rent to be honest. Many of you are probably coming from college towns with an abundance of student housing, which drives the prices down. So you're probably used to paying like $500 or $600 for a really spacious room. And like you were living in like a house with roommates, and it was really great, great location and all that. Well, especially if you're moving to a bigger city, then the prices are pretty much going to double. My boyfriend actually went to UGA and they have a bunch of student housing there. I'm pretty sure he paid like around 600 or a little bit under that for a really big room, like really great house that he was living in. And so when we came to Austin, we were like, okay, like let's find a two by two for like 1200. And we got here, the first place we saw was like around like 2000. We quickly realized that we had to bump up our budget, which sucked. But we did choose to live pretty close to the city because we wanted that experience bouncing off of that life just gets more expensive in general. This is really more for if you're moving from like a college town to a bigger city like I did. But even just getting my nails done here is like $10 or $15 more than it used to be in my college town. And it just sucks because then I have to pay tip on top of that. It really just gets crazy expensive. But it's really not something I'm like wanting to sacrifice. Like I love getting my nails done. So I'm just gonna have to live with it. I guess this is kind of random. But I also just missed the college priced sushi and just like food in general, but especially sushi. I feel like every college town has their like cheap, affordable, but like really good sushi place. I UCF Fujiyama was the place to go and they would have really bomb discounts. And it was just really good sushi. But like I feel like being in a bigger city sushi is like just so overpriced. It sucks. So I definitely missed that. One thing you should definitely take advantage of in college is all the amenities that your university provides you with. I'm talking gym memberships because now after college, you're going to have to buy a gym membership. And yes, you can get cheap ones, but you're still going to have to pay extra for it. And it just kind of sucks. Another thing that really sucks is that a lot of your student discounts, they have to like reapprove you every year. And I think something like with your email, it like deactivates or like it tells the company that like you're not a student anymore. So you don't get the student discounts, like especially for the Adobe suite. That is very expensive. And I think it was like half the price if you were a student. I don't think my student discount has knocked off just yet, but I feel like it's coming. I'm really worried about that one. Also all of the iconic ones like Spotify, I feel like Netflix probably has like a student discount. The next thing I want to talk about is definitely dependent on your personality and like where you are in life at that point. But you may have so much free time that you don't know what to do with it, or you may just be so overwhelmed with like having to work a nine hour day or an eight hour day and then come home and cook yourself a meal and then maybe go to the gym. You might be just so overwhelmed that you don't have that much free time. This also depends on your college experience. It's just going to be so much different than college. Like I don't know how to explain it, but for me, I was very involved in my sorority and like on campus. So I always had something to do. I was always busy. My calendar was literally like booked every single like minute of the day. And I just always had something to do. But now I don't know. And it's like weird to feel that way. I feel like I just have so much free time on my hands that I'm like being a little bit lazier. And the things that I do have to do, I tend to procrastinate a little bit more now that I do have so much free time. I guess this one just really depends on like what you were doing in the past and like where you are now. But just in general, things are just going to be different. The next one is a sad one. But it is that you don't have all of the breaks that you are so used to having like winter break, summer break, spring break. They are not structured out. They're not planned for you. You have to take PTO and like plan your own like time to go. But this may be more beneficial for some people. Like if you don't want to go during the busy season, maybe you can take off like in October or something and go to the beach instead of like going during spring break when all the beaches are packed. The last thing you should know and remember is that it is okay to ask for help. Even if it's not financial, like ask for help. Ask if you need help at your job. Ask if you need help with your taxes or even cooking. I always call my mom and ask like how the heck do I cook green beans? And they always know the answers. The more you ask, the more knowledge you gain. So that is everything you should know about postgrad. If y'all made it to the end of this video, I want y'all to comment down below where you guys graduated and what year you graduated in. If you guys are interested in following me and my postgrad journey here in Austin, Texas, you can follow me at so underscore gnarly on Instagram or subscribe to my channel here. I'm very much appreciate it and I will see y'all in my next video. Bye.