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25/50/10 limits. 403(b)s. Indemnity.

The technical ins and outs of adult life are often Greek to college students, who may know more about Thucydides than about salad forks.

Which is why in a muggy SUNY Geneseo classroom, Livingston County insurance agent Lisa Cottone became a teacher of things adult.

"It's not one of those things popular to talk about at parties," Cottone said. "Insurance is one of those things not easily understood."

The "class" -- more than a dozen State University College at Geneseo students -- listened last month as a panel of professionals talked about post-college life.

Colleges, usually through their career centers, have long worked on prepping their seniors for the working world, with seminars and training in such matters as resumes and networking. Now schools around the Rochester region and nationwide increasingly are teaching students how to navigate the post-collegiate world outside work, hitting such topics as personal finance and insurance. It's the flipside of orientation programs freshmen get at the start of college.

"These things aren't really addressed in the classroom. You just don't talk about this kind of stuff when you're sitting in an English course," said Renee Conklin, a 22-year-old from Henrietta about to graduate from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

In April, Hobart and William Smith held its first "Backpack to Briefcase" conference, featuring alum-ni. Nazareth College this year offered its first alumni panel discussion on post-college life. These efforts join programs already under way at such places as Rochester Institute of Technology.

Nationwide, schools from Michigan's Ferris State University to the Ivy League's Dartmouth College have launched special programs focusing on adult life skills.

It is unclear how extensive such programs are because no organization has kept track of them. Nevertheless, "it seems to be an idea permeating the field, to go beyond helping a student decide what they want to be," said Tanya Letourneau, a career counselor at Pennsylvania's Delaware Valley College, who is writing about the trend for an upcoming journal of the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

"It obviously is an issue all career professionals are attuned to," she said. "We felt we could be helpful, not just say 'OK, it's May 15th, goodbye, good luck.' "

The concept has spread as the focus of college career centers has evolved, Baran said.

"Before we were called career placement centers. Now it's more on the whole process of gaining experience through the four years as well as getting the job," she said. "We're just doing more to branch out, help students be successful."

Jesse Vickey also wants to help students be successful. And if he makes a decent paycheck from it as well, all the better.

A niche industry has sprung up around the notion of teaching post-college survival skills, and one of the companies best known for it is Vickey's Connecticut-based Cap & Compass.

The company does several dozen seminars a year at colleges, mostly in the East, and also has put out a book, Life After School. Explained.

The inspiration, Vickey said, was his own experience after graduating from Duke University in 1997. "There were a lot of things that kept popping up that I had never learned in an academic setting. Things like 401(k), an HMO."

At the end of a Cap & Compass seminar, Vickey said, it surveys students. Typically, nearly three-quarters of students respond that they don't feel that college readies them for post-collegiate life, he said.

Credit card and personal finance issues "are the biggest problem spots," Vickey said. "A lot of (students) have questions about what they should do with their money."

However, he added, "I'm starting to see more schools doing senior weeks or 'disorientation' programs, which is great."

At the end of the seminar at SUNY Geneseo last month, Chihiro Shibata walked away with a copy of Life After College. Explained as a door prize.

The 22-year-old from New York City graduates later this month "and I need to think about long-term things, instead of just the present," she said. "Important things, like investing and insurance. I have to prepare for that mindset now."

And, in case you didn't know:

25/50/10 limits are the auto insurance liability requirement in New York state -- $25,000 of bodily injury for one person, $50,000 of bodily injury for all people and $10,000 of property damage.
403(b)s are retirement plans like 401(k)s, but are offered by nonprofit organizations and schools.
Indemnity is an exemption from a penalty or liability.
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