Hit the road

A job right out of school isn’t always best option for last-semester seniors

M ost college seniors will tell you that their last semester is far from the stereotypical “Animal House” experience. “I think most of us get that out of our systems freshman and sophomore year,” says Alicia Smith, 21, a secondsemester senior at the University of Colorado. “I think most of my friends are taking things much more seriously now.”

And by “seriously,” Smith means her friends are looking for jobs.

By all accounts, Smith should be doing the same. She spent her previous two summers interning with three separate companies in Denver, focusing on healthcare administration. “I’m pretty confident that I will get an offer from one of the places I’ve done an internship with,” Smith says. But the Salt Lake City native says that if she does get an offer, she’s hoping her employer will allow her to start working after the summer. Smith says she wants to do some traveling after graduation.

“For the past two years, my roommates and I have been talking about a crosscountry trip from Los Angeles to Maine,” she says. “We have a map with all our stops plotted out in our kitchen, and we’ve been lining up places we can stay.”

Smith says she’s excited to begin her career, but she feels like she needs to experience more of the country. “I go to school in Colorado and live in Utah. I’ve been to Utah but that’s it,” says Smith, adding that her annual vacations were spent at a family cabin near the Rocky Mountains. “I just feel like I need to see and experience more of this country.”

‘Complete’ candidates

Atlanta-based corporate coach Ryan York says trips like the one Smith is considering shouldn’t have a negative impact on new graduates’ future professional life. “I think there are a lot of employers would be willing to wait a month or so for someone’s start date if they knew that person was doing something that essentially made her a more complete individual,” York says.

York says he can speak from experience. “After graduation, I spent eight weeks traveling through Canada with one of my roommates, and we basically camped through much of the Western region and made our way down to the United States and spent time in Washington and Oregon,” he says. “I really figured out a lot about myself during that trip. It wasn’t this mystical experience or anything like that, but when you’re sleeping under the stars in Whistler, B.C., you get to really reflect on who you are and what you want.”

York says it took him four months to find his first job in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, after he returned but he felt like he still came out ahead. “What’s four months in the scheme of your entire life?” he says.

Sooner than later

Matthew Kepnes, founder of NomadicMatt.com and author of “How to Travel the World on $50 a Day: Travel Cheaper, Longer, Smarter” (TarcherPerigee, $10.95), says new college graduates don’t need to be in a rush to begin their careers. “The idea of working until you retire and then living off your pension doesn’t exist for most people,” Kepnes says. “Once you’re out of school, you’re going to work until you’re dead so why not go have some fun while you’re young. When you’re 50 and you have four kids, you can’t just quit your job and travel. When you’re 22, you can say ‘I’m going to go have fun for a little bit.’”

If the allure of seeing the world isn’t enough, Kepnes says young travelers are sure to pick up some serious life skills while traveling across the globe. “Employees care about soft skills. Traveling is a great way to learn those skills,” says Kepnes, 35. “You learn to go with the flow and deal with situations. You learn how to talk to people from different cultures. You learn things you can’t learn in school. You become a more well-rounded person.”

And well-rounded people are more hirable. “If you want to be like everyone else in the job market, do what everyone else does, but if you want to differentiate yourself, go out there do something different,” Kepnes says. “When you’re interviewing for a job, you want cool stories and great life experiences to talk about. You can teach anything to anyone but you can’t teach them how to be awesome — that’s something they can only do for themselves.”