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Ben Shanno/TRUMPET

Can you define each of these terms? If you are a senior, just making it to the graduation ceremony may be all that is on your mind, but soon enough the realities of “life” will hit.

Reflect on your college career: What exactly did you learn? Are you confident that you can survive on your own in the real world as a result of being here? Surely the benefits of a liberal education were pounded into your head, and you can rattle off random facts related to your major. But author Jesse Vickey is proposing a question to all seniors—Are you ready for life after school?

Vickey is a part of the Cap and Compass company. Founded two years ago by young professionals, the group toured college campuses giving humorous seminars relating to real world issues that college graduates will be faced with. The seminars covered topics like “Avoid Looking Stupid at Dinner” and “The Least You Need to Know About Taxes.”

After collecting information from each seminar held, Cap and Compass found that 73 percent of college students do not feel prepared for the issues that they will be faced with after college. The company then decided to gather all of the information that they discuss at their seminars and put it into a helpful, easy-to-read book called “Life After School. Explained.”

“We wanted to create a book that was helpful,” said Vickey. “But we didn’t want to fill the pages with boring drivel. The challenge was taking seemingly dry and confusing topics, like health insurance or mutual funds, and explain them in a way that is both clear and entertaining.”

A book may be helpful, but how is Wartburg helping students to prepare for the real world? Will Smith, director of career services, thinks that some opportunities involve being outside of Waverly.

Will Smith, director of career services, points out the benefits to reading “From College to Career,” a booklet offered in Pathways that is designed for graduating seniors. Ben Shanno/TRUMPET

“I believe that those students who have taken advantage of living off-campus in another part of the country or world prepares them for the next phase of their lives. That’s to say any experimental living environment will give a person confidence and preparation to make it after graduation,” Smith said.

Sophomore Tyler Debour agrees.

“There are opportunities here to learn about different things, but I learn more during the summers when I work at home,” Debour said.

While being away from campus obviously gets students out into the real world, Wartburg has specifically designed the Senior Year Experience program to help seniors prepare for life after college while remaining in Waverly. The program is a partner program to Wartburg’s First Year Experience Program.

“The Senior Year Experience is a program designed to raise awareness and support of key adjustments encountered by seniors during their transition from college to post-college life…It also provides opportunities to bring seniors together that are experiencing similar concerns and also a time to allow seniors to reflect on their experiences at Wartburg,” said co-director Kris Franzen, assistant director of residence life.

The program consists of a variety of workshops held throughout the year. Topics covered include benefits packages, housing, budgeting, dressing for work and more. The academic year is also started with a seniors-only dinner, where special dates and events are discussed. The next Senior Year Experience workshop is set for Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Knights Village. President Ohle will be there to reflect with seniors on their time at Wartburg.

Franzen said that although workshop attendance has varied from workshop to workshop, the topics always draw a “good crowd” of around 15 people. There are no plans to make the program mandatory for seniors.

“I like the attitudes of the students that we draw to the workshops. They are excited to be attending and ask great questions…I like the idea that students can attend if the topic is of interest to them,” Franzen said.

Smith thinks that attendance could be improved.

“The Senior Year Experience program was designed to assist seniors with the issues of ‘transitions’ and has been relatively successful, but as with any non-required program along with other campus events, attendance has not been as high as we would have liked. However, those who have attended report back that the information has been very helpful,” Smith said.

Other Wartburg departments have come up with seminars to help students for life after college. LSAT preparation classes and marriage seminars are also offered throughout the year.

Stephanie Newsom, director of counseling, feels that toward the end of the year, she sees the stress building up in graduating seniors.

“We see more of this [stress] right before Winter Term ends, usually around March or early April. The stress of graduating, finishing their current course work while at the same time job searching and résumé writing, leaving friends, moving to a new environment, and simply the ambiguity and the unknown of what things will be like or where they will be after May is more than some seniors can handle,” Newsom said.

As with any new endeavor, mistakes will be made. With the current sagging economy, a job may not be waiting for some right after graduation. Smith even admitted that he had an interesting experience after college.

“I was one of those that did not have a job immediately after college. I moved back home with the parents…I worked as a bartender at night and as a men’s clothing salesperson during the day. In the fall, I began substitute teaching until one day when I met another sub in the teacher’s lounge….a principal had just contacted her about a long-term substitute position, but she didn’t feel qualified for the job, so she gave him my name…I was there for nearly ten years before coming to Wartburg,” Smith said.

Goals and priorities will be different for every senior that walks up and receives his or her diploma this May. But the fact remains that the real world outside of the “Wartburg bubble” may sometimes be an all-too-scary place. Smith offers some last words of advice, as Wartburg prepares to let another group of seniors go.

“As the old adage goes, people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.”
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