Hit the road: A job right out of school isn’t always best option for college grads

Most college seniors will tell you that their last semester is far from the stereotypical “Animal House” experience.

“I think most of us got that out of our systems by junior year,” says Alicia Smith, 24, a 2019 University of Colorado graduate. “I think most of my friends were taking things much more seriously by the time senior year started.”

And by “seriously,” Smith means her friends were looking for jobs while wrapping up their academics.

Smith was doing the same. She had spent her previous two summers interning with three separate companies in Denver, focusing on healthcare administration. “I was pretty confident that I would get an offer from one of the places I did an internship with,” Smith says. But the Salt Lake City native says she didn’t get an offer by her May graduation so she changed course. “For a couple of years, my roommates and I had been talking about a cross-country trip from Los Angeles to Maine,” she says. “We had a map with all our stops plotted out in our kitchen and we had been lining up places we can stay.”

And to Smith’s shock, they did it. “It was one of those things that you plan out but you kind of think you’ll never do — and then you do it,” she says. Smith says

she and three of her friends experienced traveling the country. “All four of us were from the western portion of the country so once we crossed the Mississippi River, it was thrilling. Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta and then up the East Coast,” says Smith. “We did it on the cheap — some hostels, some nights in the car, some camping — but we were gone for about three weeks and it was the trip of a lifetime.”

– Marco Buscaglia