Above photo by Chris Curry on Unsplash

It is not uncommon for parents and non-college adults to condescendingly say something like, "You better enjoy that college life before you have to enter the 'real world.'" This notion that college students are immune to "real world" concerns is non-sense. Most of my students work 20 or more hours a week; experience relationship and family problems; struggle with mental health issues; some have kids; and most are graduating with student loan debt that they will have to pay back...nobody does that for them. So, you are living in the real world and have been carrying adult responsibilities since at least the day you started college.

Now, as the end of your college career is coming into focus--whether in May of 2021 or a year or two from now--you have the right and power to define for yourself what it means to be a "success" or what it means to be an "adult." I include below an interview with an author who writes about changes in what it means to be an "adult" and the message I hope you take away from this is that being an adult or successful in life is not a prescribed and narrowly defined box of stuff that you fit yourself into...we often, as a society, act like it is but it's not. Think about what you want out of your life and what you think--at this point in your life--will bring you joy and allow you to realize your goals, whatever they may be. Your "passion" might not emerge from the fog in an "aha!" moment--you might have to cultivate that passion instead of waiting for it to come to you (check out "Cultivating Your Passion Instead of Following it" by clicking on this hyperlinked text).