* This article was originally posted on The Student Affairs Hub.
Graduation is a huge life milestone that is a mix of so many emotions for college students: excitement, fear, accomplishment, sadness, and anticipation all come to mind. It can feel like the end of something, which it is, but it is also the beginning of an era of endless possibilities for students. Once you have the time, knowledge, income, and courage to do so, life after college can be even more full than one's life at their institution. The world awaits all the recent graduates to do whatever they so choose, and it's something students should work hard to take full advantage of.
As higher education faculty and staff members, here are three key pointers to give to your students in order to encourage their personal growth and their thirst for learning after college."Keep on Being a Student"
There are numerous ways to keep on learning in the classroom like you're used to. You can keep taking one off classes at institutions near you, you can take classes online with established colleges and universities, or you can take advantage of the plethora of other web-based learning tools. Everything from Lynda.com, udemy, Codecademy, or even YouTube can help you learn new skills, master new software or tools, or even just learn some fun trivia. A lot of things can be found for free too, which is even more awesome!
"Travel the Country (and the World!)"
Whether for business or for pleasure, traveling around to new places can be an amazing learning experience. Even just going to visit a friend in a new city locally can help you understand more about what makes us all different and what makes us all the same. You can take in local sights, museums, fairs, festivals, and shows to build a list of cool and unique experiences to the fabric of your life. It's hard to capture the immense importance of traveling, but it's such a great way to become more acutely aware of the world that you just can't replicate. I encourage you to get out as much as you reasonably can so you can learn and grow as a person (and have some fun in the process!).
"Read!"
Since graduating and being done with college for the foreseeable future, it's been nice to have the time to read for pleasure. Some of you may not want to see another book for a while, but trust me that it is a tried and true (and often cheap) avenue to better yourself. There are classic works, new writing by cool current authors, and even several comic books (I'm personally a big fan) that can convey some deep concepts that enlighten you to morals about life. I've always heard that it doesn't matter what you read, it's that you read. So by all means, it can be that you read a lot of articles online about any number of things, just make sure you're keeping current on the world and reading something every once in a while for pleasure. You'll thank yourself later for it.
If you follow these tips in whatever way makes sense for you, you'll grow, learn, and be active mentally (and physically) which will help you better achieve any other goals in your life or career that you might have.
Go forth and do good, Class of 2015!
