What Recent Graduates Wish They Had Known About the First Two Years After College
The transition from college to professional life produces predictable challenges. A 2025 survey of recent graduates identifies what they wish they had understood during college that would have eased the transition.
For many graduates the transition from college to professional life is not easy. There are many predictable challenges that many graduates face after they leave college. Yet, the lessons that recent graduates have learned and the ways in which they have grown are often not shared with current students until they too have experienced similar challenges and growth. The surveys of recent graduates that have been conducted in the past several years since graduation have provided a wealth of new information about the post-college experiences of recent graduates. Recently, a survey of 1,800 recent graduates who were two to four years out of college was conducted. The graduates were asked to list the things that they wished they had known during their time in college. The survey provides current students with a practical guide to many of the challenges that recent graduates have faced and the lessons that they have learned.
The Workplace Communication Gap
Most regrets expressed by recent graduates in relation to their undergraduate studies, were in regard to communication, in particular, in relation to the workplace. The graduates reported that in college, there were many peer dialogues, interactions with professors, and general academic interactions. The workplace, however, was different, with email communications, meetings, and interactions with people in authority. What was surprising for many, was how different the communication with their supervisors was to that of their professors, and how important it was so very important to be aware of the differences of communication in the college environment and the work place, in order to succeed.
The Financial Planning Reality
Many recent graduates said they regretted not learning more financial planning skills in college. While they had known that they would have to get a job and start making money after graduation, they had not realized that there would be so many other financial responsibilities as well, such as paying taxes, saving for retirement, and choosing health insurance. The graduates said they wished they had learned more about their employer’s benefits and how to budget their new income. They also said that they had not been prepared enough for the complexity of the loan repayment process and how to manage their payments after graduation.
The Networking Maintenance Problem
Many recent graduates of college stated that they wished they had understood earlier that professional and academic networks decay quickly if not regularly maintained. The relationships one makes in college, either through classes, clubs or other academic endeavors, can be very valuable in early career if one makes an effort to remain in touch with the individuals after college. However, many graduates reported losing contact with certain college mentors or even fellow students after graduating.
The Career Path Iteration
Your first job is rarely your final job and it is OK to make career changes in the first two years of your career. Your employer views your first two years of employment as a time of exploration for you and your company. So even if you are making great money in your first job, it is OK to look for other employment if you find that the career is not for you. I went through a period of time where I worked at a number of different jobs in an attempt to find the right career for me. Some of my jobs worked out better for me than others. However, even the jobs that worked out well for me in the end did not end up being my final career. I wish that I had treated my earlier years of employment as exploratory years rather than as years where I was locked into a career that turned out not to be right for me in the end. This would have saved me a great deal of time that I spent at the end of my career trying to make up for lost time that I had spent at earlier jobs.
The Social Reconstruction
Many new professionals reported that they were not prepared for the social reconstruction that occurred after college. Reconstructing friendships from college required effort and new ways of relating with peers. New friendships and relationships with peers in early adulthood were different than the friendships and relationships that students found in college. In order to rebuild a social network of peers, new professionals reported that they needed to put in a lot of intentional effort.
The Learning Habits Persistence
Habits of learning developed by undergraduates persist after graduation and can be very beneficial in professional development. While all undergraduates may take some time to get used to not having the structure of coursework after graduation, recent graduates with good learning habits were able to seek out information, practice new skills, and ask for feedback on their performance as if they were in class.
The Sleep and Health Question
Many recent graduates said they wish that they had taken better care of their sleep and health in college, because the patterns of behavior that they established as an undergraduate followed them to their life as a professional. Those graduates who had made their health a priority in college found it to be much easier to make healthy choices in their professional life than did those graduates who had not made health a priority in college.
The Identity Question
However, these new professionals found that the transition from student to professional posed its own set of challenges. The way they had organized their time as a student did not easily transfer to professional life, and they found themselves feeling lost in the early years of their careers. For these graduates, the greatest challenge of the transition to young adulthood was establishing and solidifying an identity that did not define them as more than a student. For some, college had been the first time they began to establish an identity outside of high school. These students found that the transition to professional life was more straightforward, as they were able to carry some of the identities they had established as a student into their professional lives. Others, however, had never fully established an identity outside of student and found the transition to young adulthood and professional life to be extremely challenging.
What Current Students Should Consider
This transition period can be a challenging time for any new college graduate. By knowing what to expect, current students can take steps to prepare for these life-changing transition by: 1) gaining skills to effectively communicate in a professional setting through quality internships; 2) learning to create a simple financial plan for their finances through quality college programs (finance-focused, budgeting-focused, etc.); 3) maintaining a network of peers and college mentors even after graduation; 4) treating the first job after college as a time of exploration into a professional field. I have changed my mind on this more than once. The current view holds.
The Broader Implication
For current students, the transition from college to the professional world is one of the most developmentally important periods in a young adult’s life. For a variety of reasons, however, that transition is not as smooth for graduates and for the colleges that prepare them for it as one might expect. By learning from recent graduates, current students can gain insight to make their own transition as smooth as possible.
The Honest Conversation Recent Graduates Wish They Had
Many recent graduates reported that they never had the honest conversations with college faculty and staff about what life is like after college. The majority of conversations that students have with career services are about the success stories. Faculty members are often more interested in discussing graduate school options with their students. Even families and friends of recent graduates are often just relaying their own experiences from 10 to 30 years prior. These experiences are often not relevant to today’s students. As a result, recent graduates feel that they were left to figure out many aspects of life after college on their own.
What College Programs Could Address
When planning a program for helping students get ready for life after college, it is a good idea to explore the following topics in more depth than just talking about their academic preparation: 1) The realistic budgets of newly minted professionals including taxes, benefits, etc. and the many unexpected expenses of being completely on your own for the first time; 2) The standards of written and oral communication in a professional work place; 3) The process of coming to terms with life after college and re-making a social network; 4) The many twists and turns most people take on the way to finding their “dream job” and that it is the norm, not the exception. Programs that take these topics seriously will send students off to their first jobs better prepared to handle the transition than their peers.
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