Adult Life

January 12, 2016 · 3 min read · life

In the past six months, I have:

  • Graduated from Brown University.
  • Moved to Cambridge, MA.
  • Started working as a software engineer at Cimpress.

As a kid, I would always look forward to the day where I become an adult, have my own job, and pay for my own living expenses. However, never did I think this day would come so soon.

For the first time in a time, I finally found myself being in excess of time. In college, my top priority was doing the well academically and making sure I made the most out of my college experience. Thus, I spent most of my waking hours on college-related activities such as studying for exams, working on assignments, as well participating and contributing to organizations. I never really had much extra time, and when I did, I used it to hang out with friends or relax. Nowadays, my most time-consuming activity is work. I fortunately have a very good work-life balance so I typically get home at 6pm each day, which means that I have my evenings as well as weekends to myself. It’s a really interesting feeling to have this much time on my hands. Never in college would I be able to wake up on a Sunday and not have to worry about the pile of assignments that await me.

Time, however, is not the only thing in my life that I am now in excess of and need to learn how to manage. Money is another thing. I suppose this is obvious, but being in charge of my own financial situation has been extremely liberating. For instance, it makes me really proud knowing that I am financially able to support my own livelihood and not depend on my parents for once.

Unfortunately, everything has its downside. For one, I miss being surrounded by friends. When you’re in college, you live, study, eat, sleep, play on campus with all of your friends. If you’re bored, you can just text your friends who, chances are, are less than 10 minutes away. There are also ample opportunities to meet friends, whether it be through class, activities and organizations or through mutual friends. Now that I’m working and living on my own, I realize that making friends as an adult takes more of an effort than I thought it would. The fact that I’m younger than most “young professionals” also makes it harder, as most of the people I meet end up being much older than me. Of course, I’m not opposed to being friends with people who are slightly older than me, but as most people probably know, it’s much easier to make friends with people who are your age as you have more things in common.

Overall, I’m very happy with where I am now. I have a Bachelors degree, I have a job, I live in a nice apartment, I have awesome friends, I enjoy what I do and most importantly, I’m learning new things every day.