Graduation is indeed one of the achievements of a lifetime. It marks the end of classes, exams, and the everyday student problems. However, it does not always mean you are ready for a successful professional career. The truth is that most of the essential skills needed for a professional life can sometimes be learned after graduation – from money management to people skills.
As students, there are several other obstacles you need to overcome outside of school to be truly ready for the big world. Below is the breakdown of these barriers along with how to solve each.
Developing Consistent Habits
Growing up, students have subconsciously formed habits that affect how they live their everyday lives. It may be easy to overlook, but habits have a strong influence on how people make daily decisions. Unfortunately, learning how to manage and form consistent, productive habits is not something taught in school.
Several crucial practices are essential for professional life. This includes time management practices. As a student, you can start training yourself to manage your habits with tools such as Evernote and Trello.
Evernote is a note-taking app that’s perfect for students who need to remember many things. It allows you to create virtual notebooks for anything you need. You can create a notebook for your personal journal, a specific subject, or even a collaborative one where your classmates can contribute online.
A great aspect of Evernote is that notebooks can be synchronised across several devices. This means you can stay ahead of your notes whenever and wherever. You can also set reminders that can make sure you will not miss anything.
While Evernote is great for creating detailed notes, Trello is a great way to manage individual tasks. It offers a visual interface that allows you to organise anything into “cards” that can be dragged and rearranged any way you like. You can attach images, set due dates, and manage members of your Trello account.
To help train your habit and time management skills, you can use both Evernote and Trello to manage your coursework. You can use Trello for organising and prioritising your daily tasks and Evernote for working on bigger projects.
Meeting Up with People with the Same Interests
Sometimes, the best sources of reliable information are from the personal accounts of others. Individuals who have firsthand experience can offer you practical tips that cannot be found in books. This is why students join organisations within colleges and vocational institutions.
Meetup.com is a great site for finding like-minded individuals who share common interests – from academics to sports. From the site, you can search “Meetup Groups” that arrange actual get-togethers with other members. You can find groups for hikers, music lovers, study groups, and workshops that can help you improve specific skills.
Remember that being part of a group is also an effective motivator for learning. It introduces the sense of accountability and may encourage friendly competition. Furthermore, it can train your people skills, which is essential for your future professional life.
Networking is also a great way to be exposed to more opportunities. This includes opportunities for growth in your career and business.
Getting Help with Studies
Here’s a cold hard fact – not everything you learn at school is practicable for your future career. There often exists an imbalance with subject difficulty and its actual benefits for your professional life. At worst, subjects that require most of your time can be the least useful for you in the future.
Regardless, you’ll need to leverage every resource you can to ace your studies. Remember that good grades will lead to better employment opportunities after graduation. Fortunately, the internet can help you with all the resources you need to get good grades.
MC2 is a great website to receive tutoring in difficult course subjects like physics, chemistry, and mathematics. Unlike sites that offer to do your homework for you, MC2 offers professional assistance, which also ensures you learn from your work. This is crucial if you really want to pursue your field of study.
If you don’t want to spend money, you can opt for their list of free self-learning resources instead, particularly in the field of mathematics. This includes calculators, graphing tools, software, and a growing blog that offers academic insights.
Learning the Value of Money
Money management is another fundamental skill that will help you with your life post-graduation. Remember that effective budgeting is critical for financial stability and growth, especially if you want to manage your own investments in the future. But unless you’re taking up accountancy or other business courses, the importance of this skill is often overlooked and neglected.
Today, there are several platforms that can help you not only to improve your financial skills, but also to keep track of your budget. Buxfer is one of the most comprehensive money management tools that can help you keep track of your money in the past, present, and future.
This tool offers visual elements that can help you manage and understand how you handle your money. It covers a broad scale that can ensure no dollar goes in or out of your accounts without being recorded. You can log every transaction from bank withdrawals, deposits, and online purchases while organising them into different accounts. This is useful if you want to keep track of your credit card and different bank accounts at the same time.
For a quick look at your finances, you can refer to your detailed reports and budget allocations within the platform. You can even integrate your bank account to synchronise automatically with Buxfer. From there, everything is streamlined and easy to understand.
You can use Buxfer for free, but you can upgrade to a paid account for additional features such as online payments, backups, and bill reminders. You may also use the “Forecast” tool to plan your budget ahead of time.
Conclusion
The world is filled with learning opportunities that are outside of the formal education system. Sometimes, graduation only marks the beginning of where real learning begins. So it’s important to always have an open mind and learn to leverage resources that are readily available online.
Images: ”Author’s Own“
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