{"id":192,"date":"2020-05-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/academic\/communication\/blog\/?p=175"},"modified":"2020-05-11T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T09:00:00","slug":"from-full-time-student-to-full-time-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/from-full-time-student-to-full-time-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"Transitioning From Full-Time Student to Full-Time Employee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This guest post was written by Macey Warren<\/a>, a 2019 Lamb School graduate with a degree in Public Relations and Advertising.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-graduation is definitely a time of change. That\u2019s obvious. While it\u2019s nice to kick back your feet and not worry about speed walking to class anymore or getting spam emails from Cisco Quarantine, there are a lot of new learning opportunities that will attribute to your professional and personal growth. Sure, the classroom keeps your brain sharp, but now it\u2019s time to start thinking about what\u2019s to come outside<\/em> of the classroom while still keeping that sharp, curious mindset. Purdue is filled with makers, doers and thinkers. We\u2019re Boilermakers \u2013 iron sharpens iron. We push boundaries and ask \u201cwhy?\u201d This is what separates us from the crowd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a unique time for college students. I feel for all of you. This transition has certainly been taxing on your mental health; transitioning into a career after graduating is certainly an uphill battle all on its own. You are no longer a door away from your friends. You are no longer logging into Blackboard to submit your assignments. You are no longer allowed to sleep in until your 10:30 a.m. lecture. Life is different<\/strong>. You\u2019re now in the job routine<\/em>. You\u2019re not checking in with your professors to see how your grades are doing \u2013 you\u2019re getting performance reviews. You\u2019re not getting texts from your classmates asking what you wrote about for the research paper \u2013 you\u2019re held accountable to meet project deadlines for a client. You\u2019re not being called on in class to get participation points \u2013 you\u2019re raising your hand to prove your worth to your teammates and <\/em>the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not going to be easy at first. While movies make a job in the big city out to be pretty glamorous (*me thinking about Kate Hudson in How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days*<\/em>), it\u2019s not always full of pizzazz. My first few months of my post-graduation internship at Weber Shandwick in St. Louis were tough. I got up, drove to work, sat at my desk for eight hours, drove home, ate dinner and went to bed. Sounds fun, right? I wasn\u2019t ready for that routine. I wished someone had told me that it\u2019s okay to be emotional in the start. And I\u2019m still considering a year after graduating my start. I wasn\u2019t prepared to get emotional in the workplace. Sometimes you feel like your creativity is drained. Sometimes you feel like you just aren\u2019t getting it. Sometimes you feel like your coworkers are worrying about your performance behind closed doors. I felt all these things. So, my golden nugget to the question, \u201cWhat is something that you know now that you wish you did in college,\u201d can be found in this quote: \u201cSpeak up! No one can \u2018hear\u2019 what you\u2019re thinking without you willingly standing up for it. Mind-reading is something most people can\u2019t do.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No one can read your mind. You have to speak up for yourself and be your own advocate. This is a hard lesson I learned within the first three months of moving to St. Louis and starting my internship. I wanted to be super independent and exceed every expectation; that\u2019s not realistic. I learned that super quick. I was nervous to ask too many questions if I didn\u2019t understand the assignment. I was scared to walk over to someone\u2019s desk to ask if they could explain how I can be better next time. But if you don\u2019t speak up and advocate for yourself, no one else will. <\/strong>It\u2019s okay to tell your manager, \u201cI\u2019m feeling overwhelmed. I need a little extra time.\u201d It takes courage, and it\u2019s not always easy to admit that you need help. But you\u2019re also human \u2013 you\u2019re not a superhuman who understands everything and can take on oodles of projects at once. The sooner you are honest with yourself, the happier you\u2019ll be \u2013 in and<\/em> outside of the workplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll close with this: embrace the suck. My friend Fillipo spoke these words at my graduation ceremony at Purdue, Bren\u00e9 Brown preaches and lives by them and now I\u2019m just a messenger reminding you to eagerly accept this change with open arms. I had phone calls with my parents, choking back tears saying, \u201cThis just sucks.\u201d Post-graduation life is not an easy transition. There are weeks of sunshine and weeks of storms. The important thing is that you\u2019re a Boilermaker \u2013 and Boilermakers are resilient and always persevere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This guest post was written by Macey Warren, a 2019 Lamb School graduate with a degree in Public Relations and Advertising. Post-graduation is definitely a time of change. That\u2019s obvious. While it\u2019s nice to kick back your feet and not worry about speed walking to class anymore or getting spam emails from Cisco Quarantine, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[73,74,75],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips","tag-graduation","tag-job-routine","tag-post-graduation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cla.purdue.edu\/communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}