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Help me refresh my life!

  • I'm graduating and starting a full-time job soon. This feels like it should be a major life transition! Minor issue: my new office is practically next door to my old school. I deliberately chose a job in the area so that I could stay closer to my SO. However, this is making the whole transition feel a bit anticlimactic. I'll be staying in the same apartment, making the same morning commute, probably ordering sushi from the same place on the weekends. I'd really like to do something to shake up my routine and make this feel more like the start of something new. I've brainstormed a few ideas (redecorate apartment? spiffy new wardrobe? big travel adventure between graduation and start date?) but I'd love to get more input and advice from people who have been in a similar situation. How can I make this new job feel like a fresh beginning even though I'm staying in the same place?

  • Answer:

    I transitioned from a graduate research fellowship directly to research staff and have been struggling with this feeling for a while. Upgrading my daily wardrobe to business casual / "young faculty" definitely helped me feel the newness of my situation and feel integrated with the faculty and staff around me. Doing these things also helped: I switched my morning commute to a new route. I started attending professional lunches/functions, which also happened to be at a new, slightly nicer, set of restaurants/bars. I have been exposing myself to professional groups/meetups in my field. I learned to really appreciate having an office and desk to customize. I have been trying to figure out what my new hobby is now that I have a little more time. Generally, I have been trying to teach myself to focus on the newness of the professional culture and opportunities I am now exposed to, while letting go of the inescapable familiarity of faces, spaces, and routines. I know several people who have benefited immensely from taking a trip between graduation and the start of a job. I was hoping to do so, but due to the timing of a major project was transitioning into being full-time while still preparing to defend. Not being able to do this is really my one regret over the past year. Go for that if you can.

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Other answers

Spiffy new wardrobe for sure! If there's dough, I'd also redecorate (I myself am re-doing our basement) I think a graduation vacation is probably your best idea though. Go someplace fun and unusual, or travel to a location you've always dreamed of visiting. Also, congratulations, do you know how many people would like to be in your shoes?

Ruthless Bunny

Start a new "grown-up" habit, like having happy hour once a week with friends or co-workers, in someplace you can afford now that you have a job. One meaningful inaugural event, like a trip is a good way to mark the transition, but unless you pair the new job with new ongoing habits it's really easy to slide back into old routines, and that's what can make it feel like a letdown in a few months once the shiny newness wears off.

blazingunicorn

A travel adventure would be great. I spent a lot of time traveling near the end of my time in school and wouldn't trade it for the world.

starpoint

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