You’ve gotten your sheepskin and, as the strains of Pomp and Circumstance fade into the background, you’ve said the word “graduate” a thousand times to yourself trying to make the reality of it sink in. It will and you’ll find new vistas opening to you as you move out into the world. And not just on your desktop.
But don’t think you’re done. There’s still a lot out there for you to learn and the sooner you do, the happier you’ll be.

Most people never achieve true financial independence. You don’t want to spend your golden years scraping the corpse of Social Security or depending on the generosity of generations yet unborn. So commit yourself now to a course of discipline and lifelong learning.

If you can learn discipline then everything else becomes that much easier. You can build budgets and actually stick to them. Save money. Avoid debt, at least avoid getting deeper in debt than you already are.

Find something that you like, preferably physical, and commit to training every day. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at it so as you like it. Just train, practice every day. Push yourself to excel. When you can run 5 miles in the pouring rain then staying in because you have work in the morning won’t seem like much of a hardship. You’ll find that attitude leaking into other areas of your life and driving you to be that little bit better.

Now start saving. Just put aside a little money every month, or two weeks, or however often you get paid. Experts recommend 10%, but anything you can manage is worth it. You’ll have to actually spend less than you make. Buying on credit is expensive and you don’t want to go any deeper into debt than you already are, but now is the time build those resources before you get more adult responsibilities. You’ll be surprised how quickly interest on your savings shows measurable growth. Just imagine: someone paying interest to you instead of the other way around. Then you’ll have the resources to make more sensible investments than lottery tickets.

Throughout your life never stop studying. Particularly work on your vocabulary and language skills. Even if you’re an engineer or mathematician the ability to write and speak clearly is far more valuable than gold and a hell of a lot easier to carry around. If you can find a job that doesn’t require communicating with other people we’d love to know about it.

Remember, knowledge can never be taken away from you. The school might be able to revoke your degree, but they can never repossess your memory.