University is a big experience. For many people, it’s the first time they’re living alone. Add to that the number of temptations and the ease with which you can give in to them and sometimes it can turn into one giant X-rated playground. At the same time, if you actually want to do something interesting after you’ve graduated, you do have to make sure that you actually do some things right while you’re still at university.

In this way, you’ll be able to flow right into something that is both exciting and well paying. And you know what? If you manage to do that, then why does the playground have to stop? It doesn’t. As long as you can leave the playground at the door when you go to work, you should be able to party for a while longer.

If, however, you don’t do what is necessary to make sure that you’ve got a decent life after you’re done with the university thing, it can quickly turn from a playground into a torture chamber. Debt, poor job choices and little life experience can add up to a perfect storm of dissatisfaction. So, make sure that you actually do the following things before university is over.

Build an online footprint

Nowadays before people hire you they’re going to Google you. What are they going to find? If it’s pictures of you sucking on beer bongs or running around without any clothes on, that will probably not leave them with that good of an impression.

So make sure you contribute good things to your digital footprint. That means getting involved with things, like politics, work groups, and projects. It also means writing things for publications, being part of art projects and anything else really that will get your name on the internet.

The goal here is to make sure that whatever you’re doing is considered more important by Google than those pictures of you partying your ass off. The main way to do that is by getting your content on high-quality websites.

Build relationships

You might think it will always remain easy to make friends. It won’t be. For some reason, as you get older making new friends can become quite difficult. For that matter, start building your network while you still can. College friends can last a lifetime and be there through thick and thin.

And they’ll be immensely useful for whatever jobs you’re going to do, particularly because your college friends are likely to head off in directions that you never thought possible. That might give you connects in the strangest of places, like the circus, the entertainment business and that one guy that ended up moving to Switzerland and start a cow fart recycling company.

Become really good at something

Sure, everything in university is interesting to some extent. This world, however, does not need any more generalists. Generalists are plentiful. It is specialists that we’re after. For that reason, make sure that you really excel at one thing. It could be the guitar, it could be chemistry, it could be reciting the alphabet backward (okay, that might not be so useful unless you’re doing a lot of filing). Just make sure that you really become good at something that you wouldn’t mind spending a few years doing. Because every resumes.expert will tell you that having one marketable skill that you’re really good at is going to be a huge boon to getting a job after university.

Then you can use that skill to get a job and learn a great deal else while you’re there to further round out your personality.

Stand up for your beliefs

Later on, when you’re working full-time, you’re not really going to have a lot of time to be involved in politics or be an activist. And that’s a shame. How much would better this world be if we would only have a few more activists and people who cared, aye?

For that reason, make sure that you join a protest, have late night discussions about the nature of evil, or help some animals escape from a lab. How will this help you with a job? Well, except for being able to show that you actually care about something (which is always nice) it will also give you the chance to hone your debating abilities, think deeply about a cause that matters to you and demonstrates that you’re more than a pretty face.

And those are all things that are going to help you in the long run.

Get some hands on experience

Whether this means an internship, a part-time job somewhere, or working in a professor’s lab, having some actual hand on experience will be immensely useful. It will teach you how to communicate, how to work with people, how to actually do something in the ‘real world’ and how to get your head out of the books.

And those are exactly the things that many businesses feel fresh graduates are lacking. So, get a leg up on the competition, get out of the theoretical and get your act together.

Last Words

You think you’re approaching the end of an era. Okay, that’s true, but every ending is also a beginning. Life outside of university can be fantastic. The rules are different, the ideas going around change and how you make your way through the world will alter as well.

The thing is, they can change for the better or the worse. It all depends on how ready you are. If you’re not, then it might very well be that you end up being one of those people who thinks that university was the high point of their life and it all went downhill from there.

If on the other hand, you are prepared, then it will probably only become another step on a stairway to heaven. What’s even better, it will be your heaven. You will have built it and you will be able to own it.

Sounds pretty good, right? So don’t waste any more of your time at university. Start building towards your future. After all, whatever you do, it’s coming. So why not be as prepared as you can be for when it arrives?