bizMe

bizMe spoke with Marcos Salazar, the author of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide and a research officer with the American Psychological Association, to find out more about what young professionals find when they leave college behind to enter the real world.

What inspired you to write your book?
After I graduated, I found that so many of my friends were unhappy with their lives after graduation, whether it was their job, or losing all their friends, or just being out of the college experience. So, I wanted to get at why this was happening, and I ended up looking at books that had been written. There had been some books that had kind of described what people were going through, but they didn’t offer any solutions to the challenges graduates were facing. A lot of the other books had been just testimonials. I wanted to write a book based on psychology research that could provide solutions.

What sort of solutions did you find could help twentysomethings adjusting to their new lives?
People always ask me, “What’s the one thing graduates can do to adapt life after college?” There isn’t one magic bullet. One of the reasons for that is so many aspects of a twentysomething’s life are in flux after graduation. Your social life has disintegrated. You’re moving to a different job. You’re having to form a new identity. You have to figure out what you want to do with your life. I think one of the main things to understand is that you’re not alone. Basically, every single graduate goes through this period and this difficulty. I don’t like to refer to this time of life as a ‘crisis,’ because a crisis by definition is something that’s abnormal. This is something that’s a very natural, normal reaction to such a life change.

How were we affected socially and career-wise by the “helicopter parents” and constant praise and feedback we grew up with?
Since we were very little kids, we were told exactly what to do and how to do it by our parents and teachers. Parents have constantly praised kids, saying they can do anything they want to after graduating, but it creates an unrealistic expectation of themselves and what they’re capable of. Once they graduate college, that identity is shattered because it doesn’t match with reality. It creates unnecessary challenges after graduation.

Is it harder for today’s twentysomethings to adjust to the post-college life than for previous generations?
Definitely. It’s not to say that previous generations haven’t had to go through difficult times. What’s different are the challenges. The world they’re entering into is very different. So, the advice given to previous generations is not applicable to what current graduates are experiencing. They were told to go to school, get an education, get a steady job, stay in that job your whole life, get married, have a family, but that just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s a number of different challenges that graduates aren’t prepared for, such as choosing a path to go down. The economy’s very different, and the working world’s very different. People job-hop all the time, whereas before it was one job.

How is the post-college experience different for women?
I think one of the major things is that women have a much more difficult time with the loss of their friends and building those social networks. They tend to be a little more important to them. Your social network disintegrates after leaving school, and I think that’s a little more difficult for women.

How do you think young people could be better prepared to live in the real world?
One of the major things is that there has to be much more of an emphasis on practical skills and social skills that will help people in the working world. One of the most common things I’ve heard is that college does not prepare people for what they’re experiencing in the working world. I think some of the major things that need to be emphasized are learning basic business skills and even entrepreneurial skills, things that could be applicable to a number of different fields and a number of different jobs.

What’s your next project?
There are a couple things I’m working on now. One of them is a new book focusing just on work after college. There’s going to be an entire section devoted to the work experiences of women after college, focusing on the new challenges they’re facing in the 21st century. That’s in conjunction with the Life After College Project. We’re launching a survey later this month about the work experiences of young professionals today. In conjunction with that, there’s a forum I created called the Life After College Forum, a place where graduates can come together and discuss the issues and challenges they’re facing. It’s going to be launched with the Life After College survey.